Freedom Series 1: The Founding Fathers
by Nail Strafer
Summary: What if the fathers of Sonic and Tails were actually the first ones to fight Robotnik? Read to find out!
1. The Discovery of Planet Freedom

DISCLAIMERS:

- All official Sonic characters belong to Sega. All characters I have personally created belong to me.

- This series of fanfics is based in the Sonic universe of that of the animated movie "Sonic the Hedgehog", which was released in North America in 1999. Now, the movie doesn't even try to stay canon with the games, comics, or TV shows, and I will be doing the same in these fanfics. The only piece of Sonic material that I will try to stay canon with will be the movie itself, and even then I won't stay strictly with it.

As such, expect my own spin on certain plot details (such as Sonic's history) to contradict with facts in other Sonic material. If you don't like that, then I'd strongly recommend you stop reading this now and read someone else's fanfic. For those of you who wish to continue, enjoy my work!

- This fanfic might start off slow, but give it some time. I'm starting slow to set the stage for the plot. It'll speed up once you're about halfway through Chapter 2.

**Chapter 1: The Discovery of Planet Freedom**

Over the past three centuries since today, mankind on Earth developed highly advanced technology for his society. People lived longer, healthier, and more productive lives than ever before. What's more, this technology continued to advance to make life even easier to live. People had much more leisure time than they do today, and yet a lot of them still have money in their pockets. Who knows, soon technology might even rise to the level where man does not have to do any work except command his machines to do their jobs.

However, it wasn't always like that. In fact, the human race was facing severe problems around the year 2150. Useable resources on Earth were running out at an alarming rate, both due to a boom in the human population and the need for still more resources to construct the latest technology. Because of this growing fear, the worlds' governments funded a significant amount of research into developing spacecraft that could travel far away from Earth, and come back with loads of resources to continue to support Earth's population.

The work soon paid off well. By the start of the 22nd century, space travel became as common as air travel was at the start of the 21st century, and now people were traveling at record speeds in outer space. New colonies were founded on Mars. People gratefully filled these new settlements, since Earth was rapidly becoming overcrowded. Also, new resources from Mars were sent back to continue to supply Earth. Mankind could rest easy, for his problems in supporting his growing population were over, at least for several centuries.

However, with the ability to make settlements beyond Earth, humans got the urge to travel even deeper in space to continue to spread. Unfortunately though, a trip to Mars alone took about two months, and it was even longer to reach many other places in the solar system. This restricted man to the solar system where he had spent all of his existence in. However, the problem was finally solved in 2192, when David Krik invented the hyper drive. For the few spaceships that could handle the hyper drive, it allowed them to travel light years in mere seconds. A few scout ships were immediately dispatched to search the Milky Way for potential new places to settle and explore.

On the morning of February 2, 2204, an exciting discovery was made. The Nika scout ship had found a new solar system that had a striking likeness to the one that humans hailed from. This new system was named the Nika system, after their ship. However, it wasn't the system itself that the humans were excited about, but rather it was what had been detected on one of the planets in it. The one in question was a planet that appeared to have a similar environment to Earth from their scanners, which made it prime for settling. The new planet was named Planet Freedom, due to the fact that humans now had the freedom to settle worlds beyond their own solar system.

Their scanners also picked up a strange pattern of heat coming from the surface, which suggested the possibility of life forms on that planet! The question of whether or not man was alone in the universe might finally be answered! The Nika quickly hurried to this new world to find out the truth, and the question was soon answered with a resounding yes. After touching down on the surface, they quickly experienced contact with the natives. The native inhabitants of this planet were anthromorphic Earth-like animals, or Freedomians. Science is still at a loss as to how to explain why the members of this species are as varied as the animal kingdom on Earth, and how they even came to be.

These beings seemed docile enough to the humans, and so they did not fire upon them. Rather, they decided to befriend them, for these were the first living beings man had seen living away from Earth. It would be such a waste if they died. With the help of special language translator devices, communication was established between the two parties. The Earthlings let the Freedomians know that they had no intention of harming them, and that they simply wanted to explore the planet. As the humans searched this new world, they discovered more about the planet itself and the native inhabitants. What they learned surprised them and baffled them.

For one thing, the planet's sky is full of flying islands and continents, and this area is called the Land of the Sky. A majority of the planet's inhabitants live here, due to the fact that it offers a brighter and more attractive environment than the Land of Darkness, which is what the surface of Planet Freedom is called. Due to a lot of sunlight, and water from rainfall and many lakes and rivers, a large amount of vegetation exists here for the Freedomians to use. The Land of Darkness is the planet's surface, in which most areas are cool and dark, since the Land of the Sky absorbs most of the warm sunlight before it can reach the Land of Darkness. However, since this area is low enough to have an extensive cloud cover, rainfall is frequent and provides nourishment for the plant life.

One may think that it would be difficult to get around in Planet Freedom, since a good portion of the communities are on islands up high in the sky. However, this is not the case, because the planet provides its own natural highway system. Throughout the planet, blue warp zones are scattered around, and through these the user can easily reach just about any place he or she want to go. However, the kinds of warp holes are extremely varied. Some are so small they can only transport one or two people at a time, while others are big enough to handle a major city's traffic. Also, some may vanish for hours at a time after being used, while others are in place continuously and never vanish. The only things consistent among all of them are that each one of them has a predetermined location where it appears, and a specific destination.

The technology level of the Freedomians in their communities was about the level of that of the ancient Egyptians on Earth. Also, thanks to the warp holes, strong bonds and trade rose up among all of the ancient nations on the planet. Thus, the planet had seen very few wars and hostility among the residents, instead offering a spirit of cooperation. They also treated their planet with respect, trying as hard as they could to minimize pollution and waste.

In 2205 the humans gave the Freedomians Earth technology that existed around the start of the 21st century, as payment for allowing the humans to explore the planet for resources. They were deliberately given outdated technology, since it was thought that current technology was too complex for them to learn to use. There was also another more...strategic reason for giving them outdated technology. The humans feared the possibility that the natives would rebel against them, and the outdated technology ensured they would still be outmatched by the latest Earth technology. The Freedomians were kept in the dark about this newer technology, and still happily assisted the humans when they needed help searching for resources on the planet.

Freedomians turned out to learn surprisingly quickly, about one and a half to two times faster than the average human. A Freedomian that was twelve years old could easily have the knowledge of a human that was eighteen, for example. They easily learned how to operate computers and other machines, and how to speak Earth languages like English. This generated fear among the humans that the Freedomians might soon become a superior race. And so, the Earth's governments forbid the supplying the Freedomians with more futuristic technology.

To police this new law and other human interests on the planet, the Earth's governments established a human ruling council there. Ruling over this council is the President and his two Overseers. While the President commands the council, the two Overseers watch over the Land of the Sky and the Land of Darkness, and provide the President with their reports. A human army of about one million men was stationed on the planet should trouble arise among the natives.

However, the next 100 years passed without any terrible incident. Over that time, the humans got the resources they wanted, including various valuable metals and fossil fuels, while the Freedomians' culture became more and more influenced by the human culture of the early 21st century. By the end of the first century of humans on Planet Freedom, the natives were practically fully integrated into the old human culture. Things such as cell phones, cars, and computers became commonplace in their lives. During this time, several new nations were also founded out of the different Freedomian tribes, each one of them having a specific role in the new economy of Planet Freedom.

Tneicna was a nation that was founded out of those Freedomians who refused to accept human technology, and so their nation remained as the planet had been before humans had arrived. Cictra, a nation around the North Pole of the planet, produces gold and other wealthy metals. Tresed, the desert nation, produces oil and other fossil fuels, in addition to having strange ancient ruins of a lost civilization (which are currently being examined by archeologists). Elona is the least populous nation, but it is needed to produce food for the planet. Farms are scattered throughout its fertile land.

While much of the Land of Darkness is still unpopulated (since Freedomians have mostly stayed away from there), the humans set up a few nations there to continue to bolster the new economy. Zeraw is a nation that produces software for the computers of the planet, but it is also a rampant place for software piracy and other computer crimes. It also became the world capital of video games and online gaming. Ronoh, the most technologically advanced nation, produces factory equipment, cars, and other kinds of machinery for the rest of the planet. Naeco is a nation that runs along the coast of the Dark Sea, the largest body of water on Planet Freedom. This is where goods from the sea are produced, including fish to eat. Lufetsaw is the largest nation on the planet, and it harvests and processes most of the precious metals on the planet to provide material to make machinery and other items.

Spanning both regions is the small South Island, which is where the seat of the Earth's power on Planet Freedom rests. From here the Earth's small ruling council oversees the activities of the planet, and ensures that the Freedomians don't turn rebellious against humans.

As said before, all of this happened over the 100 years after the humans' first contact with the Freedomians, without any wars or other terrible incidents. However...on March 3, 2305...a new Overseer was appointed to watch over the Land of Darkness. His name was Ivo Robotnik...


	2. New Friends

**Chapter 2: New Friends**

**May 12th, 2307 - 2:00 AM - Egg City, Robotnik Empire**

A light blue hedgehog dressed in military garb was standing outside a massive fortress gate, and around him were hundreds of other soldiers. He could also hear warplanes approaching from the distance, and the rumble of tank engines behind him. Everyone around was extremely tense, and only hushed whispers could be heard among the soldiers. The hedgehog tied a green headband around his forehead as he recalled the events that had brought him to this time and place.

After Robotnik had taken over as Overseer of the Land of Darkness, there had been reports of resources vanishing from several places. Finished metals from Lufetsaw, fuels from Tresed, weapons from the human army's military bases, various pieces of machinery from inbound Earth cargo ships... More disturbing still was the kidnappings of a few Earth military generals and Earth architects who had been visiting in June of 2306. They had been brought over to help build a new base on Planet Freedom for the local human army, but they just vanished soon after landing in New Earth City on South Island. Nobody was sure of what was happening. It was suspected that Robotnik had something to do with it, since these things had started happening right after he was inaugurated as an Overseer.

Finally, on New Years Day 2307, it had all become clear what was going on. Robotnik had been collecting the resources to build his own private army in the Land of Darkness, and he had launched his first attack on Reppoc, Lufetsaw on that day. He had been able to effectively keep his army a secret up until that point because of two factors. He had chosen to build his headquarters in the largely unexplored Land of Darkness, and he had constructed an army of robots to get around the problem of finding living, breathing soldiers he could trust. He seemed well on his way to accomplish his goal of taking over Planet Freedom, which he announced to the populace shortly after the attack.

Due to the surprise attack, he was able to quickly take over Reppoc and rename it Egg City, the first city he had managed to integrate into his new Robotnik Empire. It wasn't long before he had captured a good portion of Lufetsaw, and thus had secured most of the sources of metals on the planet. The human army quickly rose up to try to stop Robotnik's army, but the first mission was a disaster. One third of the million human soldiers on Planet Freedom were killed, and the rest decided to retreat.

Robotnik had built up quite an impressive force over the last two years, and he had fortified himself well within his cities. With the first crushing defeat of the humans, a call was sent out among the Freedomians to join the army and crush the Robotnik Empire. Those who had managed to escape Lufetsaw quickly joined, and more from the other nations soon followed.

Unfortunately though, the Freedomians were mostly equipped with outdated early 21st century weapons, while Robotnik had the latest equipment available to him from when he was still an Overseer. This was the first true mission of the makeshift Freedomian army, and many were wondering if it would make any difference in halting Robotnik's quest for world domination. Regardless, Robotnik had been spotted in this city, and the mission was to capture him and force him to call off his army.

And this was what had brought the light blue hedgehog here today. His name was Swift, a resident of Elona in the Land of the Sky. His wife Kara had died in a car accident, leaving him alone in the world with his son. He regretted leaving his son alone at home, since he was only six years old, but he had felt a strong urge to join up to protect his planet. This wasn't the first time he had made a decision like this, because many times in his life he had gone out of his way to protect others. Even if he was arrogant, he just couldn't stand seeing others suffer unjustly.

"Swift?" a red fox next to him whispered in his ear.

"What is it Kyle?" he replied.

"Get out of your little dream world, because the attack is about to start."

"Oh, okay."

Swift turned to look at his new friend Kyle, the red fox. The two of them had become fast friends since being put in the same unit. Kyle hailed from Ronoh, which wasn't very far away from Lufetsaw. He had joined mostly to halt Robotnik's advance before his country Ronoh fell like Lufetsaw did. He was a killer pilot, but unfortunately he hadn't been able to join the newly formed Freedomian Air Force. He said that he wasn't married yet, but he had his eye on a yellow fox that worked as an engineering professor at Ronoh University. He said her name was Natalie, and that he was going to propose once this war was over.

What had also made them rivals was the fact that both of them were very athletic. Both of them could run extremely fast, and they could jump very high. Swift had noted this when they both always finished way ahead of the others in the obstacle courses and running exercises during basic training. Until that time, Swift thought that he was the only one on Planet Freedom who had been blessed with extreme running speed. Swift was still definitely the faster out of both of them, but Kyle was the better jumper. Each of them tried as hard as they could to beat the other during the training.

An explosion on the other side of the wall broke Swift out of thinking about Kyle, and shook him back into awareness of his situation.

_I really shouldn't wander off into my own world like that,_ Swift thought.

The explosion had probably been caused by one of the bombs from their planes, which were flying overhead. Meanwhile, plasma cannons and missile launchers could be heard inside the fortress walls, shooting back at the attacking planes. It wasn't long before one of the fighters had a trail of black smoke streaking behind it, before it exploded into a massive fireball.

After a few more minutes of listening to the two sides exchange fire, several tanks rolled up to the fortress gates that the soldiers were standing next to. Once everyone was clear of the gates, the tanks fired several rounds into the heavy doors, denting them from the repeated blasts. Finally, the doors collapsed and fell down upon the ground.

"TANKS! MOVE IN!" General Salt shouted out. "SOLDIERS! FOLLOW BEHIND!"

The tanks rolled into the city, firing at will as they trampled over the city gates with sturdy treads. Soldiers began to move in behind them, using the tanks as cover. The troops fired with their assault rifles at unseen foes that Swift couldn't see from outside the city wall. Swift frowned, a little annoyed at how slowly and carefully the soldiers were moving into the city. He wanted to just charge head first into the fighting, using the spines on his back to carve right through anything that got in his way.

"To hell with this..." Swift muttered. "This is too slow. I'm charging in there right now, alone."

"What are you talking about Swift?!" Kyle said next to him. "You're not a one-hog army, you know! You can't go in there alone!"

"Sure I can, watch me!"

Swift threw away his assault rifle as he ran away, thinking it would just weigh him down. He shot off past the other soldiers and the tanks in a blue blur, going so fast that he left a black scorch mark on the dirt as he took off. He glanced over his shoulder, chuckling a bit as Kyle struggled to keep up with him and the other soldiers looked in wonder at his speed. Looking in front again, he sprinted straight down the middle of the road, occasionally curling into a ball and crashing through robotic foes that got in his way.

_Now this is more like it,_ Swift thought.

If he remembered right from the briefing before the mission, Robotnik's suspected location was in the old city hall. Swift screeched to a halt, leaving twin skid marks on the pavement as he suddenly came to a halt. He ducked into a nearby alleyway between two buildings, and pulled out a small electronic GPS map. He found his coordinates on the map, and saw that he had another mile or so to run to get to city hall.

"This is like a daily jog to me," Swift said aloud. "By the time everyone has managed to clear the gate, I'll have already caught Robotnik and it'll be mission complete... I can already see my name in the headlines."

He smirked as he put his GPS map back into his pocket. Out in the street, he heard loud, clunking footsteps approaching. He jumped out to face the new foe, and found himself face to face with a robot four stories high. The massive machine was colored jet black, and had a single red eye in its head for vision. Yellow spikes adorned the shoulders and the top of the head, and for its arms it had a plasma cannon on the left and a missile launcher on the right. Its massive stumpy legs looked like they could crush an entire car with one stomp.

Seeing the small blue hedgehog before it, the robot maneuvered its plasma cannon to fire onto the new target. However, Swift had already sprinted towards the robot and jumped straight up at its chest. He curled himself into a ball, and prepared for the impact. However, all Swift succeeded in doing when he hit the robot was getting a massive headache. The armor was too strong to break through. He fell to the ground, clutching at his head in pain. He landed easily his two feet once he hit the ground.

"Holy hell! That's strong armor!" Swift exclaimed.

The robot maneuvered one of its feet to stomp on Swift, but since it was so massive the movement was quite slow. Swift easily rolled aside to dodge the foot as it stomped down. As he flipped backwards away from the robot, it yanked the foot out of the street, revealing a deep impression in the concrete. After getting its foot loose, the robot aimed at Swift and began firing massive plasma balls all over the place. With his incredible speed though, Swift easily dodged all of the attacks. The street and surrounding buildings were soon covered with craters from where the balls had hit. Swift stopped next to a parked car on the side of the road.

"Is that all you've got?!" the hedgehog shouted at the robot.

The robot fired one more plasma ball at Swift, which he easily dodged. However, the shot hit the car that he was standing next to, which triggered a big explosion. Swift was blown sideways by the explosion and hit the pavement hard, his left side singed from the blast and his right side covered with scratches from hitting the pavement so hard. After shaking off the pain, he jumped to his feet. However, when he looked up the robot had fired a heat-seeking missile at him. He started to run for it, but he already knew that the missile was too close for him to escape.

Suddenly, someone roughly ran into him from the right. The two of them tumbled leftwards into an alleyway. The missile tried to compensate for the sudden change in its target's movement, but it was too slow. It harmlessly crashed into a building down the street from the alley. The blast lit the street and the alley with a blinding light, in addition to creating an earsplitting explosion. It made Swift's head hurt, and he shook it to shake out the pain. He then looked at who had run into him and saved his life. It was Kyle, standing there with a furious expression on his face.

"I told you that you're not a one-hog army!" he yelled. "You would have died if I hadn't been there to save you!"

"I guess you're right, but thanks for saving me, you big red fluff ball," Swift shot back. He peeked around the corner of the alleyway to see the robot. It was scanning the street, looking for the two of them. "How are we gonna get past him?"

"I can shoot out his red eye, because unlike you, I remembered to bring my rifle with me."

"Sounds like a good idea to me..."

Suddenly, the robot jerked its head to face their alleyway. One second later, it started aiming its missile launcher at them. They'd been spotted.

"DAMN! He saw us! We gotta run!"

With a whoosh, the robot fired a missile off. Swift sprinted out of the alleyway, and the missile trailed after him. He was running straight for the robot, and he got an idea.

_I'll run right at him, time a somersault so that I'll land on his chest with my feet, and then wall jump backwards. The missile won't be able to turn in time to get me, and it'll hit him instead!_ he thought.

Swift sprinted towards the robot, slowing down a little to let the missile catch up. He didn't want to give the missile enough room to turn around after he did his wall kick. However, he then realized he had forgotten to take the robot's plasma gun into account, as the robot aimed it at him.

"DAMMIT!" he shouted as the robot started firing. He jumped all over the place to dodge the plasma blasts, and was successful in keeping from getting fried. However, this gave the missile enough time to get frighteningly close to him. Swift ran as hard as he could to get away, even though he knew there wasn't enough time to escape the missile. Suddenly, there was the loud boom of a high caliber rifle, and the missile exploded into a fireball behind Swift. Swift was hurled forward by the blast and scraped along the concrete, but he was otherwise uninjured.

It looked like Kyle had shot down the missile...but that didn't sound anything like the standard issue assault rifle he was equipped with. As he stood up, there was another loud boom in the distance, and he could hear the sound of breaking glass overhead. He looked up at the robot, and saw that whoever was shooting had also successfully shot out the robot's red eye. He turned around to face Kyle, but he was facing back down the street. There was someone else on the street with him.

Someone was hiding behind a rolled-over car down the street. Swift couldn't see much of him since the car was in the way, but he saw the long barrel of a rifle poking out from the right side of the car. Apparently, this new arrival was the one who had fired the two shots earlier. He briefly saw a blue tail swish into view, but the rifle and the tail quickly vanished behind the car after that. After that happened, an orange blur shot out from behind the car. It rushed very quickly at the blind robot in the middle of the street, and leapt high into the air. The orange blur struck the robot's head, and with the noise of a buzz saw, it started to saw the head to pieces. Soon, the head was in two halves, and the pieces fell off the shoulders to the street below. Its head with its computer brain suddenly missing, the body also started to fall towards the ground. Swift quickly rolled out of the way as the body crashed into the pavement.

Once he was clear of the danger he looked around for his savior, and saw the orange blur rushing back towards the rolled-over car where the mystery shooter was hiding. The blur flashed behind the car, and then came out again on the other side. It flashed around a corner and was gone. Swift ran over to the car, but when he looked behind it the shooter was nowhere to be found. It looked like whoever was the orange blur had run off, grabbing the shooter as he had run past. Kyle joined Swift at the car a few seconds later.

"Man, I'm too careless, that's the second time somebody else has had to save me. Still though, it's good that those two other guys were around to save me."

"Do you know who those guys were?" Kyle said.

"No idea," Swift replied. "I didn't get a good look at either of them. All I saw was that the shooter had a blue tail, and the other one was going so fast that all I could see was an orange blur. Speaking of the orange guy, he was using all of my moves! Extreme speed, the high jumping, and the drilling ability."

"I know! Who was he?"

"Who knows, he sure as hell wasn't in basic training with us, or I think he would have been beating the crap out of our times on the obstacle courses and in the running exercises."

"Unless he was deliberately holding back..."

"Whatever, maybe we'll get to meet those two again once this is over. Anyway, let's get on with the mission of finding Robotnik."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that."

The two of them set out towards Reppoc City Hall, Robotnik's suspected location...


	3. Battle of the Wrecking Balls

**Chapter 3: Battle of the Wrecking Balls  
  
May 12th, 2307 - 4:00 AM - Reppoc City Hall, Egg City, Robotnik Empire**  
  
Robotnik had put up increasingly formidable defenses as Swift and Kyle neared City Hall, slowing them down. However, they hadn't encountered anything they couldn't handle. Some plasma gun turrets, a unit or two of robot foot soldiers, a couple tanks, and assorted other enemy forces. Whatever Swift couldn't handle with his speed and the diamond-hard spines on his back, Kyle covered for him with his own speed and his assault rifle. Finally, they found themselves on the steps of Reppoc City Hall, ready to run inside and get Robotnik.  
  
"Are you ready for this?" Kyle said.  
  
"Of course. Robotnik doesn't have anything left to protect his fat ass with. Let's go get him!"  
  
"Remember though, we need to bring him back alive."  
  
"Yeah yeah, I know. Lucky him that those are our orders."  
  
They looked up at the building before them, with its authoritative-looking Greek columns and wide steps. A shame that the authorities housed here could have done nothing to stop Robotnik. They saw a light on in a large window on the top floor.  
  
"That's probably where Robotnik is..." Kyle said.  
  
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go get him!"  
  
The two ran up the front steps, and pushed open the front doors of the building. It was very dark inside, and so Kyle turned on the flashlight attached to his assault rifle. He swung the light beam all around the room, looking for potential hostiles. The beam moved over overturned furniture, old bloodstains on the walls and floor, as well as bullet holes and craters caused by explosions. There weren't any bodies though, so Robotnik must have cleaned them out.  
  
_There must have been quite a struggle here,_ Kyle thought to himself. _Those poor people who died here...  
_  
They quietly crossed over the front lobby, and headed for the stairs on the opposite side of the room. Swift started to mutter under his breath as they got onto the first step.  
  
"Shut up Swift!" Kyle whispered.  
  
"I'm sick of this snooping around," Swift said in a loud voice. "I'm gonna run up there right now and get Robotnik!"  
  
Before Kyle could stop him, Swift had already charged up the stairs as a blue blur.  
  
"He's gonna get himself killed if he keeps doing that!" Kyle said as he took off after him.  
  
Soon, he found himself in the top floor's hallway. He swept it over quickly with his assault rifle, and saw a pair of open double doors at the end of the broad hall. Golden light streamed out into the dark corridor through the doorway, showing an expensive-looking red carpet on the floor. He could hear the sound of a jet engine in that room, as well as some shouting, but he couldn't make anything out over the noise of the jet. He ran down the hall towards the doorway.  
  
Suddenly, Swift ran out through the doors, just as a huge checker-colored wrecking ball crashed through the wall and tore the bottom half of it down. Meanwhile, a small egg-shaped craft crashed through the top half of the wall, and sent that part of the wall crashing down as well. A large chain connected the ball and ship to each other. Seated in the small egg ship was a bald, fat human dressed in the red and yellow costume of the human Overseers. He had small black glasses, and a massive brown mustache. It was Dr. Robotnik himself.  
  
"Well, it's nice to finally meet the both of you," Robotnik said.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Kyle said.  
  
"I've been tracking your progress across the city," Robotnik replied. "You did a really good job making it this far by yourselves."  
  
"Why thank you..." Swift muttered.  
  
"However, I can't let you live, because I can already see you're too dangerous to my plans. Nothing that I put up out there could stop you, when it should have been able to crush an army."  
  
"You hear that Kyle? We're dangerous!" Swift said.  
  
"Consider being killed by me a privilege!" Robotnik shouted, as he swung the wrecking ball on the bottom of his ship towards Swift.  
  
Swift leaped high into the air, as the ball crashed through a wall in the hallway. As Swift landed safely on the ground, Robotnik tore the ball out of the wall, dragging out some smashed office furniture with it.  
  
"You'll have to be faster than that, Doc!" Swift yelled.  
  
Robotnik growled in frustration as he swung the ball at Swift again. Another wall in the hallway was taken out as the ball missed Swift.  
  
"Don't forget about me!" Kyle yelled.  
  
He fired his assault rifle at the engines of the egg mobile, trying to disable them. However, the bullets harmlessly ricocheted off of the strong metal.  
  
"Don't worry, fox, I haven't!"  
  
Robotnik did an overhead swing with his wrecking ball, and brought it hurling down upon Kyle. Kyle jumped away as the ball smashed down through the floor. As the ball swung through the lower floor, the chain tore a gash right through the marble and the carpet. Robotnik rocketed closer to the ceiling, dragging the ball up while creating yet another hole in the floor.  
  
_There's not gonna be much of a city hall left once this is over..._ Kyle thought.  
  
Robotnik continued going up, and smashed through the ceiling with his ship, dragging up the wrecking ball with him.  
  
"Follow me if you dare, Freedomians!"  
  
"With pleasure!" Swift yelled.  
  
He leaped right up through the hole in the floor and Kyle followed close behind. The three of them were now on the roof of Reppoc City Hall. The noises of fires crackling, fighter jets and bombers buzzing overhead, and the distant rumble of explosions filled the chilly night air, but Swift and Kyle barely noticed it, their attention on Robotnik.  
  
"Catch!" Robotnik shouted.  
  
He swung his wrecking ball towards Swift and Kyle, but this time he detached the chain during the swing, sending the ball tumbling across the roof like a giant boulder. However, the two of them easily sidestepped it, and it rolled onto the roof. It fell to the street below, crushing an abandoned bus.  
  
"Sorry, we don't want to play catch," Swift said.  
  
"How about laser tag?!" Robotnik said as two laser blasters popped out of the sides of his ship.  
  
Robotnik fired red lasers all over the place, and the airspace around Swift and Kyle was soon a hailstorm of hard light. Kyle dived behind an air conditioning unit, while Swift ducked behind the entrance to the stairs. The red laser beams bounced off of the obstructions, blocking the shots.  
  
"Hmph..." they heard Robotnik mutter.  
  
There was the noise of something dropping out from the bottom of Robotnik's ship and locking into place. Then, there was a humming noise, like something was charging up. Kyle glanced out from behind the air conditioner he was hiding behind, and saw a glowing blue sphere of energy forming on the bottom of Robotnik's ship. Finally, with a noise that sounded like "FWOOSH!", a blue cutting laser appeared from the bottom of the ship. Robotnik slashed the laser towards Kyle.  
  
"OH CRAP!" he shouted.  
  
Kyle leaped high into the air to dodge the laser. Meanwhile, it slashed through the air where his feet had been a mere second before, and it easily cut through the air conditioner as if it was made out of butter.  
  
_Wow...a split second slower and I would have lost my legs..._ Kyle fleetingly thought.  
  
Suddenly, he remembered that Robotnik still had the smaller red laser, and turned his attention towards Robotnik's egg ship. His eyes widened in fear as he saw Robotnik bringing the smaller laser cannons to bear on his head. He was flying through mid air, with nothing to block the shots. He was dead.  
  
It was at that moment when he saw Swift running towards Robotnik's egg craft. Since Robotnik was completely focused on Kyle, he didn't notice Swift approaching. Swift curled into a ball and leaped at Robotnik's ship. As Robotnik fired, Swift crashed into the side of his machine and knocked it away. This knocked off Robotnik's aim, sending the laser shot flying away from Kyle's head. However, it struck him in the left shoulder, just before the red fox crashed to the ground.  
  
"AAAAH!" Kyle screamed from the sudden pain.  
  
"DAMN!" he heard Robotnik scream in frustration as he corrected from Swift's impact. "One more second and he would have been dead!"  
  
While Kyle was grateful that his head hadn't been shot off, he was rolling on the ground, clutching to his left shoulder with his right arm and moaning in pain. That laser had neatly cut right through his skin, allowing blood to pour out. It felt like a hot bar of steel had been pressed to the spot where he'd been hit.  
  
"KYLE! Are you okay?!" Swift called out.  
  
"Been better!" Kyle shouted back.  
  
"I'll take care of Robotnik, you just rest!"  
  
"Okay!"  
  
Kyle got the strength to sit up, so that he could watch Swift fight Robotnik. He crawled behind the air conditioning unit he had been hiding behind before, to get cover.  
  
"Do you really think you can take me alone, you blue pincushion?!" Robotnik shouted.  
  
"Watch me!" Swift yelled back.  
  
Swift leaped directly at Robotnik again, while curling into a ball. Robotnik was sent flying away from the impact.  
  
"What do you think you are, a wrecking ball?!" Robotnik yelled.  
  
"YES!" Swift said back. "I'm gonna smash you out of the sky!"  
  
Swift kept crashing into Robotnik's ship over and over, while he futilely tried to fire back with his red lasers, but missed all of his shots. The armor on Robotnik's ship seemed strong, but after repeated brushes with Swift's spines it started to get rather worn down. Soon, it looked like Robotnik's egg craft had been put through a giant blender, and it would crash at any moment. While Swift seemed to be getting a headache from crashing into Robotnik's armor so much, he seemed to be holding up much better than the ship itself.  
  
"Time to finish you off!" Swift yelled out.  
  
He charged across the rooftop of the city hall so fast that he left a trail of flames behind him. He leaped into the air, and was going so fast he looked like a blue comet. He smacked right into Robotnik's egg ship and sent it toppling over the side of the roof. Kyle crawled over to the edge of the roof, and watched. With a trail of smoke, Robotnik's machine tumbled down to the street below, and crashed into the pavement. He was sent flying out of his ship onto the street, while his egg ship burst into flames. Robotnik appeared unconscious, or dead, since he didn't move from where he was lying on the concrete.  
  
_Well, we got the bastard..._ Kyle thought. _But...is he still alive?! If he's dead, he won't be able to call of his army and we'll have to destroy it the hard way!  
_  
"SWIFT! Hurry! We gotta get to him!"  
  
"You're right!" Swift said. "I forgot! If he's dead our mission is a failure!"  
  
Swift grabbed Kyle by his good arm, and the two of them jumped down through the hole in the ceiling. A few seconds later, they had run down the stairs of Reppoc City Hall and were standing at Robotnik's side.  
  
"Hey, you still alive?" Swift said to Robotnik.  
  
Robotnik suddenly coughed up and spit out a mouth full of blood. After a few more coughs, he looked up at the two of them. One of the lenses of his black glasses was smashed, and he had rivers of blood traveling down his face.  
  
"Aren't you going to kill me?" he muttered.  
  
"No, fortunately for you our orders are to keep you alive," Kyle said as he pointed his assault rifle at Robotnik's face, albeit holding it painfully since his shoulder was still hurting. "As long as you don't try anything, we'll keep you as healthy as possible before we turn you in."  
  
"But if you do try something," Swift warned. "We'll kill you in an instant. Now, get up."  
  
Robotnik slowly rose to his feet, while Kyle kept his assault rifle trained on him. Swift tore the rope from a flagpole in front of City Hall and used it to tie up Robotnik's hands behind his back. The three of them set off to the Freedomian Army's camp outside Reppoc, Kyle keeping his rifle on Robotnik, while Swift held the end of the rope attached to Robotnik's hands. 


	4. End of the War?

**Chapter 4: End of the War?  
  
May 12th, 2307 - 5:30 AM - Various places**  
  
As they marched Robotnik into the Freedomian Army camp, cheers rose up from the other soldiers when they saw who was with them. They could even see the sun up in the sky a little, as it's rays of light poked through holes in the Land of the Sky continents above them. Even though the Land of the Sky blocked most of its warm light out, the sun added to the cheery spirit of the camp. They took him to General Salt, a giant brown dog. He smiled at the two of them.  
  
"Excellent work, both of you!" Salt declared. "You've brought this war to an end. Tell me your names!"  
  
"Swift Hedgehog."  
  
"Kyle 'Kilometers' Prower."  
  
"Swift and Kyle, your names will go down in history for winning this war. Congratulations to both of you!"  
  
"Thank you, General," Kyle said as he bowed.  
  
Robotnik turned around and grinned at the two of them.  
  
"What are you smiling about?" Swift said.  
  
"You think you've won, don't you?" Robotnik said. "Let me tell you, this isn't the end. It's just the beginning. You'll see..."  
  
Swift did feel a slight twinge of fear at Robotnik's words at first, but then he just laughed so hard his stomach started to hurt. What Robotnik was saying was just an idle threat, and nothing more. He was about to be taken off to a maximum-security prison, and there was no way he'd be any serious threat to anyone there.  
  
"Yeah...sure..." Swift said when he finally recovered from his heavy laughter.  
  
"Don't say I didn't warn you. Remember me, because I will never forget about either of you." Robotnik said.  
  
"Enough of this...get him outta here!" General Salt shouted.  
  
As Robotnik was carted away by a battalion of soldiers, Kyle and Swift talked to each other.  
  
"What I will remember is this day," Kyle said.  
  
"Me too," Swift said. "I can't wait to tell my son about what I've done here today."  
  
"Oh right, I almost forgot you had a son. What did you say his name was?"  
  
"It's Sonic... I think it's kind of a silly name, but my wife Kara loved it before she died."  
  
"Really? If he runs as fast as you, then it's a perfect name for him! I don't think it's silly at all."  
  
"I guess you're right."  
  
"It'll be a while before I have a kid. First, I gotta go back home and marry Natalie."  
  
"Oh yeah...well, good luck proposing to her. Then again, I don't think you'll need any of that. You're a war hero now! Women adore war heroes, don't they?"  
  
"I guess...I don't know if Natalie would be the sort of person to adore a big tough guy with battle scars though. She's a college professor, and engineering and machines are her life."  
  
"Speaking of battle scars, how's that place feel where you got shot?"  
  
"It still stings like crazy," Kyle said as he put a hand to the laser wound in his shoulder. "But I'll recover in time. I was really lucky that I didn't get shot in the head instead. By the way, I didn't say it yet, but thanks for saving me up on the roof."  
  
"No problem. Thanks for watching my back out there too."  
  
"You're welcome. Anyway, you wanna go celebrate with everyone else?"  
  
"Yeah! Let's go!"  
  
As the rest of the day went by, the Freedomian Army easily destroyed the remnants of Robotnik's forces in Reppoc. Without orders from their leader to guide them, the robots were confused and disoriented, which made them easy to destroy. Later, Robotnik would be forced to deactivate his army completely. Once that happened, the only thing that the army would need to do would be to pick up all of the deactivated robots and dispose of them. It was hard to believe that the objective had been accomplished so quickly, and by just two soldiers no less. Swift and Kyle got handshakes and presents galore from the rest of the soldiers.  
  
**One week later...**  
  
An army transport plan arrived to pick up Kyle and Swift. With the help of a warp zone, they quickly arrived at New Earth City on South Island, where the seat of the humans' government rested. President Tree personally congratulated them in the Presidential Palace, on catching Robotnik so soon. They got into a convertible and were paraded down Main Street of New Earth City, where thousands of people lined the streets and tossed confetti all over the place. Other soldiers marched in front of and behind them.  
  
While Swift wallowed in his glory, he thought to himself, _If only Kara was here to see me now...  
_  
---  
  
A certain disgruntled fat man watched the parade as it was replayed on TV that night. Robotnik, seething from his defeat, continued to sit and watch in the prisoners' lounge in Naeco Maximum Security Prison. He had been stripped of his normal red and yellow Overseer clothes, and had been given an orange jumpsuit like all the other prisoners. While normally all the inmates would be sitting around in their cramped, boiling hot cells, they had been brought out to watch the parade.  
  
"Hey fatty!" a vocal weasel called out. "Those guys are the ones that beat you!"  
  
"Thank you, Captain Obvious."  
  
"Whatcha gonna do about them? You're stuck here with us, egg belly!"  
  
All of the prisoners around him broke out into laughter. Robotnik simply sat on his small cheaply made plastic chair, quietly watching the TV set.  
  
"Hey!" an annoying squirrel called out. "I heard you said when you got caught that this was only the beginning! Well, it sure is the beginning...of you rotting away in here for the rest of your life! Man, are you gonna stink after you've been in here a while! I feel like I'm gonna faint from your smell already, in fact!"  
  
The prisoner mockingly clutched to his nose, pretending like he was trying hard to keep from breathing noxious fumes. He pretended to choke to death and collapsed to the floor in a heap. Everyone in the room laughed, and a few others also pretended like they were choking to death from his smell. A heap of prisoners fell onto the floor, mockingly screaming that they were dying while still others laughed.  
  
_You just wait, all of you._ Robotnik thought to himself. _ See how funny I am when I put my backup plan into motion..._


	5. Jailbreak

**Chapter 5: Jailbreak  
  
June 12th, 2307 - 6:00 AM - Various locations  
  
**Swift peacefully slept in the bedroom of his apartment in Forest Town, Elona, his mind free of troubles as the morning sunlight started to filter in through the blinds. With all of the money he had been rewarded with for capturing Robotnik, he could never have to work again, and even his KID might not ever have to work. Still though, he didn't think he'd like to sit around doing nothing for the rest of his life. Swift was a restless soul, and he could never stay in one place for very long with nothing to do. Maybe he'd stick around in the army for a while to give himself something to do...  
  
The telephone on the nightstand next to his bed started to ring, stirring Swift from his slumber. He cursed under his breath, and blindly reached towards the phone with his eyes still closed. After a few moments of searching, he finally found it and brought it to his ear.  
  
"Uh...hello...?" he muttered.  
  
"Swift? Is that you?" a familiar voice said.  
  
"Oh, hey Kyle..." Swift said, as his rage started to slip away since it was a friend who was calling him. "What's up?"  
  
"Turn on your TV! Hurry up and do it now! Go to the news channel!" Kyle ordered.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Just do it!"  
  
Swift fumbled around for the remote, which he also left on his nightstand. He picked it up and aimed it at the TV set. He pushed the power button. The TV flickered to life, and Swift changed to Channel 7, the news channel.  
  
"We're continuing to bring you live coverage from Naeco Maximum Security Prison," a young female reporter said. "Which is currently under attack by Robotnik's army."  
  
The news camera showed a view of the outside of the prison. Robotnik's tanks had surrounded the prison, and were plowing right through the electric fences as if they were made of cardboard. Prisoners who happened to be out in the yard took advantage of the chaos to run for freedom. Guards in the guard towers feebly fired their rifles at the tanks, but all this got them was return fire. The tank shells easily blew up entire towers, sending them crashing down with the guards inside them. As the tanks entered the yards inside the fences, robot soldiers emptied out and moved towards the cellblocks.  
  
"What the hell?!" Swift said.  
  
"I know," Kyle said back over the phone. "Robotnik's army should be disorganized and confused without their leader."  
  
"Maybe he programmed them to save him in case he got caught."  
  
"I guess so. It looks like we'll be seeing each other again sooner than we thought."  
  
"Yeah. Looks like he wasn't making an idle threat back in Reppoc after all. I guess I'll get ready to go now then."  
  
"I'm getting packed now too. It's a shame how this came up right in the middle of my honeymoon. I'm going to have to cut it short."  
  
"You got married to Natalie already?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"Congratulations then, bud!"  
  
"Thanks, but now's not the time for that. I need get going. Our unit is meeting at the army base in Chawak, Ronoh, so I'll see you there."  
  
"Chawak, Ronoh, got it. See you there. Bye!"  
  
"Bye!"  
  
---  
  
At the prison, Robotnik sat giddily in his cell, hearing the distant explosions and screams. Soon his robot soldiers would get to him, and he would be free. Robotnik took off his glasses and looked at them with pride.  
  
_I could have never pulled off my backup plan without_ _this,_ he thought.  
  
Robotnik wasn't actually talking about how well the glasses allowed him to see, but what special feature he had built into them. He had installed a hidden homing beacon inside the frame of the glasses, should he be captured. All he had to do was press a button to activate the beacon, and his army would come to help him. He was a little afraid that the beacon might not work when he had first turned it on last night, but fortunately it seemed to be working perfectly.  
  
Had he been so inclined, he could have turned on the beacon the day he had been captured and been freed before even reaching the prison. He decided that it would have been better to let the Freedomians have a month off, to let them get a little lazy. In that way, they wouldn't be prepared for his sudden surprise attack. As an added bonus, he had totally crushed the Freedomians' happy spirits from their early victory by letting them bask in their glory for a while.  
  
However, he heard loud footsteps outside marching up to his door. He heard the swish of a keycard through the reader next to his door, and with a confirming beep it hinged open. Several heavily equipped human guards stood outside his door, with thick helmets, heavy bulletproof vests, and high caliber assault rifles. They looked like they were ready for hell itself.  
  
"YOU!" a guard yelled, pointing his finger at Robotnik. "Come with us!"  
  
Robotnik smiled and got up off of his bed.  
  
"You're only delaying the inevitable," he said. "I WILL be getting out of here a free man today, no matter where you take me to."  
  
"Just shut up and let's go!" the nearest guard shouted, grabbing Robotnik's arm and jerking him out of his cell.  
  
Another guard slammed a pair of handcuffs on Robotnik's hands. They marched down the hallway, three guards walking in front of him, three bringing up the rear. Apparently, they were taking him to a more secure area. Not that it would make much of a difference. His escape would only be delayed by several minutes more at most.  
  
He heard the rumble of a tank engine behind the right wall, and grinned. About three seconds later, with a mighty crash, the tank smashed through the wall, sending bricks toppling everywhere and creating a massive cloud of dust in the hallway. The three guards walking in front of Robotnik were actually crushed by the tank since it had smashed in so suddenly. Meanwhile the others behind him jumped back in fear, waving their guns towards the tank. Robotnik smiled and turned around to face the guards.  
  
"It's not too late for you to run," Robotnik said to them. "Leave now and my soldiers will spare you. There's no need for you to throw away your lives like this."  
  
Even under their facemasks, Robotnik could tell how terrified these men were. They looked like mice trapped against a wall by a big cat, with no hope of escape.  
  
After a few seconds, one of the guards screamed, "Screw this!" and ran away back down the hall.  
  
"Wait for me!" another guard yelled, dropping his rifle as he turned to run.  
  
There was now only one guard left.  
  
As the other two sprinted down the hall, the last guard called out "FREDDIE! GEORGE! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!"  
  
Robotnik stepped over to him, and the guard turned around in fear. Meanwhile, the tank that had crashed through the wall in front of them reversed, tearing out more bricks as it pulled itself out of the building. The guard pointed his rifle at Robotnik's face, trembling so much the rifle was jerking all over the place.  
  
"Too late for you," Robotnik said. "You think you're being a hero, I imagine, but all you're really getting is an early death."  
  
"Just shut up!" the guard screamed at him.  
  
A laser blast fizzled past Robotnik's left arm and struck the guard in the stomach. With a gasp of surprise, he toppled to the floor, dropping his rifle.  
  
"Are you all right, Master Robotnik?" a robotic voice said from behind him. He heard the footsteps of other soldiers coming in behind the first robot.  
  
"I'm fine," Robotnik said.  
  
He didn't bother to turn to face his robot soldier. He heard the sound of the robot raising his blaster rifle to its shoulder.  
  
"Don't shoot him yet," Robotnik said as he waved a hand in front of his servant. "I'd like to have a talk with him first, but kill him if he makes any sudden moves."  
  
"As you wish," He heard the robot say, as he stepped back.  
  
"How do you like your reward for doing your job?" Robotnik said.  
  
"I may die here today, but I will die a hero, unlike my friends," the guard said.  
  
"Some friends they were...but at least they were smart enough to not carelessly throw away their lives like this."  
  
"I'd rather die a hero than live in the shame that I let you go."  
  
"Die a hero? How romantic. What's the point of dying though if all you did was delay my escape a few minutes?"  
  
"We make sacrifices for the rest of our people, for the good of many instead of the good of a few."  
  
"Aww...that's so precious..." Robotnik said in a sarcastic voice, as he looked up at the ceiling and grinned. Drifting back into his normal tone, he said "But ultimately pointless. For I will never be defeated by such heroes."  
  
"Are you sure?" the guard said, as a soft click was heard.  
  
Robotnik jerked his head down, and saw that the guard was leaning up on one hand. In the other hand was his handgun, which he had pulled out of its holster while Robotnik was distracted. He started to squeeze the trigger. However, the robot soldier opened fire and sent a hail of lasers into the guard's body, sending him toppling to the floor in a spray of blood as the red bolts of light struck him. The blood rapidly spread across the floor, staining the white linoleum red.  
  
Robotnik had experienced real fear there for a moment, but it was quickly replaced with arrogance and Robotnik smirked at the dead body before him. The guard had drawn Robotnik into the conversation, so that he could distract him long enough to pull out his handgun and shoot him. It was a good plan, and yet it hadn't worked.  
  
"You see...I can never die to you pathetic Freedomians," Robotnik said with a sneer to the guard's corpse. "No matter how heroic you are, I'll never die to any of you. This planet will be mine soon..."  
  
He turned around to face the robot soldiers behind him.  
  
"Get me out of here, now!" Robotnik shouted at them. "And get these things off of me!" as he waved his handcuffs in front of them.  
  
One robot solider stepped forward and grabbed one of the cuffs. He pulled it apart, snapping it into two pieces. The other cuff broke just as easily. The broken handcuffs clattered to the floor as Robotnik walked out of the hole the tank had broken in the building's wall, with his robot soldiers in tow. As he walked out into one of the prison's outer yards, he saw prisoners running out of the buildings, and got an idea. As he got inside a nearby tank, he ordered the robot soldiers to broadcast a certain message to the prisoners on the prison's PA system. A few minutes later, the robot soldiers took control of the PA system and blasted the message from all of the loudspeakers in the compound:  
  
"Attention all prisoners! If you would like to be free of this prison forever, then report to the Robotnik mother ship on the north side of the compound! Come on board and we will fly you out of here!"  
  
The message was repeated over and over about every 45 seconds. The prisoners cheered, and many of them ran straight for the mother ship waiting outside of the prison walls. The Robotnik forces had broken many holes in the fences and walls, and had also killed many of the guards, so it was easy for them to get out. Many ran towards the ship once they were free, and piled into it through the entry doors. The robots herded them into the cargo bay, as Robotnik had requested. He watched with glee from the window of his tank at how eager the prisoners were to go with him.  
  
A few minutes later, Robotnik took his seat in the control room of the mother ship. He was extremely pleased with how well his backup plan had worked. He gazed at the four former humans in front of him, manning the controls of the room. These were the four Earth human generals he had kidnapped last summer. Iketani Jinzo, the Japanese man, Boris Shlochev, the Russian, Hans Gutenhuber, the German, and Jack Thompson, the American. They were the ones who had been activated when he had turned on the homing beacon in his glasses, and had commanded his army in his absence to free him.  
  
The experiment he had tried on those generals in the summer of 2306 had worked perfectly. At first, he was afraid that it might diminish their effectiveness in commanding armies, but it seemed like they still retained all of their old knowledge of war tactics. Even better, the experiment had made it so that they would never need to eat, drink, or sleep, so they could work for him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if he wanted them too. Best of all, once the experiment was over, they had obeyed him to every last letter he had said, just as he wanted it. All in all, it was a complete success. Since his invention worked so well, he was going to try it again...on the prisoners he had recently freed.  
  
---  
  
Redrum Sehliner was extremely happy. He was a dark red dog from Tresed, and his criminal nickname was the "Sudo Butcher", which he earned from the papers after cruelly murdering several people in Sudo, Tresed's capital city. He had been put on death row for his crimes, and it didn't look like he was going to escape from prison in time to avoid his punishment. Now though, his opportunity for escape had been handed to him on a silver platter by Robotnik's army.  
  
_That guy may be a maniac who wants to take over my home world,_ Redrum thought. _But hey, if he's going to offer me escape, he's an all right guy by me.  
_  
He sat on a box in the cargo hold of Robotnik's mother ship, smiling widely. He was so happy that he didn't even bother to talk to any of the other prisoners around him. When he had felt the ship lurch off of the ground, he felt like a whole new dog.  
  
_It's all uphill from here,_ he gladly thought.  
  
Suddenly, a large door in the wall nearby rolled open. Robot soldiers started walking into the room, surrounding all of the prisoners. Whispers could be heard throughout the crowd:  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
"What do they need?"  
  
"Do they need to talk to us or something?"  
  
Redrum slid off of his crate and surveyed the room. The soldiers moved rather efficiently, because before long they had soldiers stationed throughout the cargo bay. Once they had reached their positions, they remained still for a moment. However, simultaneously all of the robots raised their guns and depressed the triggers. Instead of lasers, a purple gas appeared from their guns. As the wisps of gas reached his nostrils, Redrum started to feel tired.  
  
"It's sleeping gas!" someone in the room screamed.  
  
The prisoners started to make a run for it, but it was hopeless. Already some were too tired to even walk, let alone run for their lives. Robot guards blocked all of the doors so that nobody could leave the room. Redrum was out of it after the first minute of breathing that purple gas. After a few minutes, there was no longer any resistance from the prisoners and they all slept peacefully on the floor. 


	6. The Roboticizer

**Chapter 6: The Roboticizer  
  
June 12th, 2307 - 2:00 PM - Robotnik's secret headquarters, somewhere in the Land of Darkness**  
  
Redrum stirred, and woke up. He was lying down on a metal floor, but it wasn't the same metal floor in the cargo bay. He was somewhere else. He started to stand up and survey his surroundings. He was actually inside a glass tube in what looked like a laboratory. The whole room, walls, floors, and ceiling were made of metal. A large computer took up most of the wall that he was facing, and there were several rows of sinister black levers on this computer. He looked behind him and saw that there were other prisoners in glass tubes like his own. In all, there were about 18 of the machines in the room. Most of the prisoners were just starting to wake up, like he was.  
  
"What's going on?" he asked the nearest guy who was awake. He was a weasel.  
  
"I don't know..." he replied. "But I don't like being trapped in these creepy glass tubes. Who knows what the hell they're used for?"  
  
"Robotnik said he was freeing us, didn't he?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"What's he going to do to us in here? Dissect us?"  
  
Over the course of the next few minutes, everyone in the tubes slowly woke up. Redrum continued talking with the weasel in the tube next to him during that time. It was good having somebody to talk to, because it eased his fear a little to know that he wasn't alone in this mess. However, all of the peace he had built up from talking to the weasel was blown away as soon as Robotnik entered the room.  
  
"Hello everyone!" he called out in a booming voice. "Welcome to—"  
  
"Let us out of these things, you bastard!" Redrum called out, interrupting Robotnik.  
  
"Well, aren't you the pleasant one?" Robotnik said, walking over to his tube.  
  
"You said you were going to free us in that PA announcement, so free us from these tubes!"  
  
"I already have freed you..."  
  
"What the hell do you mean? We're not free in here!"  
  
"Regarding that announcement, I only said I would free you from the PRISON... I didn't tell you anything that I was going to do after that, did I?"  
  
"Well..."  
  
"You should learn to read the small print before you sign, you know," Robotnik said.  
  
He stepped back to the computer at the front of the room so that he could face his captive audience better.  
  
"As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, welcome to the roboticizers! With these devices, I am going to run special energy currents over your bodies that will transform them from flesh and blood into metal. More importantly though, this process will remove your free wills and you will from that point on obey my every command."  
  
"Let us out of here right now!" Redrum screamed, pounding on the glass of his tube with his fists.  
  
All of the other prisoners quickly joined in, shouting and screaming and hitting their glass tubes. However, the glass they were caught in was just simply too strong to break. While the prisoners were trying to escape, Robotnik calmly moved over to the computer on the opposite wall of the lab and started to press the buttons.  
  
"You can't do this to us!" the weasel next to Redrum yelled. "Please! Forget what I said to you in the prison lounge! I take it all back!"  
  
Robotnik turned around from the controls. The hum of electrical power started to come from the roboticizers all of the prisoners were in.  
  
"This will be the last few moments of your lives that you will have free will," Robotnik said. "I suggest you savor them."  
  
Over the course of the next few minutes, the pounding continued. However, the noise was slowly being drowned out by the continual increase in the sound of the electric power's humming. It was rather symbolic of how the prisoners' hope was continually being covered up by an ever-rising amount of dread. A red light lit up on the computer, and Robotnik moved over to the levers. He turned to face the prisoners.  
  
"Say goodbye to your old bodies and your free will!"  
  
He slid his hand across the levers one row at a time, pushing them all down. Rings of yellow energy started pulsing across the outside of the glass chambers the prisoners were trapped inside. A bright circle of light began to move up from the bottom of each chamber. As the light passed over each prisoner's body, it replaced their body of flesh and blood with metal. Redrum looked down in horror as his feet were turned to metal by the light. Soon, his legs followed, then his lower torso and tail, and then his upper chest and arms, until only his head was left.  
  
_Well, this is it..._ Redrum thought. _Not much different from the lethal injection, I guess. At least I'm not going to die. Maybe if I'm lucky, somebody will get me back my free will and—  
_  
It was at that moment that the circle of light passed over his head and turned it to metal as well. A few moments later, there was only one thought that was in Redrum's brain now, which was repeated over and over in an endless loop:  
  
_I serve Master Robotnik. I will obey all his commands.  
_  
---  
  
The process finally complete, Robotnik pressed some buttons to raise all of the glass chambers up into the ceiling. He faced his next batch of of robotic servants. Roboticizing all of these prisoners had saved him quite a bit of metal, and they had more intelligence and brainpower than his typical robot soldiers to boot. He would have these help guard his secret base.  
  
"Now, who do all of you serve?" Robotnik said to the robots.  
  
"We serve you, Master Robotnik," they all said in perfect unison.  
  
"Excellent..." he started pacing around the room. "You can all start off by patrolling this secret base you are in right now. Speak with my roboticized Earth generals in this next room over here," he said as he waved his hand towards a door in the room, "And they will give you your assignments. You may go now."  
  
The robots bowed and marched towards the doors without making a sound. Robotnik watched the procession, very excited with how well his invention worked.  
  
_The roboticizer...it is surely the greatest invention ever. It provides the user with a body that does not require any food, water, or sleep, and it is also far harder to destroy than a fragile flesh and blood body. The old brain is retained, and the user can still use all of his old intelligence and knowledge for tasks. The best part is that anyone who is roboticized loses their free will and will only do as I tell them to do! Whoever gets in it becomes a part of my empire, whether they like it or not.  
_  
The last two robots who walked out of the room just happened to be a hedgehog and a fox. While a quick glance confirmed it wasn't who he thought it was, it still got Robotnik thinking about them.  
  
_Like I said before, Swift and Kyle, I will never forget about either of you. You were lucky the first time we met, but luck doesn't last forever. The next time we meet, I will be sure to take care of both of you, be it by the roboticizers or by death._  
  
He opened another door in the room, to allow his robot soldiers to carry in the next group of prisoners to be roboticized. 


	7. Father and Son

**Chapter 7: Father and Son  
  
June 12th, 2307 – 9:00 PM – Hedgehog Residence, Forest Town, Elona**  
  
Swift decided that after he got the call from Kyle that he was going to spend the rest of the day with his son, before he had to go off to war and leave him alone again. The two of them had decided on one of their old favorite pastimes, which was to go on runs through the Elona wilderness. With so few people living in Elona, much of the land was uninhabited and unsettled, which gave the two of them a lot of unrestricted running space.  
  
Swift was faster than his son at running, but Sonic was rapidly catching up to him. Last year, Swift could have outrun him without breaking a sweat, but nowadays he had to put in a little effort to be able to stay in front. He thought that in another couple years his son would surpass him in speed, and then he'd be the one trailing behind from then on.  
  
At noon that day, they had rushed back into Forest Town to eat at Sonic's favorite restaurant, which was actually just a hotdog stand that was sometimes set up near their apartment building. He had become quite addicted to chilidogs, ever since Swift had given him a little bite from one a couple years ago at dinnertime. Swift hoped that when he got back he could get Sonic to eat something healthier. Too many of those things would fatten him up and slow him down.  
  
That afternoon, the two of them took a ride in Swift's biplane, which he called the Tornado. It was a single-seater, but Sonic was small enough to sit in Swift's lap while he worked the controls of the plane. However, Sonic was growing bigger fast, and Swift probably wouldn't be able to fly like this much longer.  
  
"If you get any bigger, one of us might have to ride on the wing from now on," he said aloud to Sonic.  
  
Regardless, the Land of the Sky was a beautiful sight from the air. The islands and continents that floated above the planet were covered with beautiful forests, lakes, rivers, and mountains. The sight was even more beautiful considering all of the land was floating on a sea of clouds far above the surface of Planet Freedom. You had to watch closely to see the surface from way up here, since there were so many clouds down below to block the view. The sky was amazingly blue up here, and it felt like it stretched forever. All in all, it was no wonder that the Land of the Sky had tons more people living in it compared to the Land of Darkness.  
  
Too soon though, the sun was starting to go down, and Swift turned the plane around and headed for home.  
  
"Daddy!" Sonic shouted. "Come on! I wanna keep flying!"  
  
"I'm sorry, son, but we have to go home," Swift replied. "If it gets dark I won't be able to see where I'm going, and we might crash. I promise we'll fly again later."  
  
"You promise?"  
  
"Yeah. We'll fly again as soon as I get home from the war."  
  
The two of the arrived home that night and ate a late dinner. As the two of them sat at their kitchen table and ate their food, Swift watched the news on their nearby TV set through the door to the living room.  
  
"Because of the release of Dr. Robotnik by his army," a news anchor said. "The human council has determined that it is too dangerous for Freedomians to live in the Land of Darkness at this time. Robotnik's hidden headquarters are reported to be hidden somewhere in this region, and so residents could be dangerously near Robotnik and not know it. All who are living in the Land of Darkness are requested to evacuate immediately to the Land of the Sky. The council advises trying to stay with friends and family during this time, but there are shelters being set up for those who cannot find a place to stay. Stay tuned for further details. And now, a word from our sponsors,"  
  
A commercial for some brand of coffee came up, and Oliver "Old Man" Owl, the legendary racer in the Freedomian Flying Speed Races, was starring in the commercial and endorsing the product.  
  
_Well..._ Swift thought. _Make that FORMER legendary racer. This poor guy's eyesight is getting worse and worse by the day, and his formerly great reaction times are getting slower too. It's a miracle he hasn't killed himself out on the track yet. Why, just six months ago, when Sonic and me watched him racing right here in Elona, he scraped the right side of his racing jet along a cliff wall. The wing got torn off from the impact, and the jet came crashing down to the ground. It burst into flames moments later. Yet, that bugger managed to escape with just a few scratches and burns. He's one lucky owl, that's for sure.  
_  
Unlike in real life, Oliver's trademark gray and orange jet in the commercial flew around an aerial track without making any mistakes at all. The pilot made dangerous and death defying moves, like getting within a few mere inches of cliffs and doing barrel rolls through narrow canyons. High-energy music played in the background throughout the ad. Swift had little doubt it was a hired stunt flyer doing the tricks rather than Oliver himself, because Oliver would have crashed at least two dozen times during this whole commercial if he was trying half of these stunts.  
  
As the jet settled down at the pit stop near the finish line, Oliver stepped out and cheerfully said, "I start every day with Reglof Coffee to assist my lightning reflexes during my early morning training runs!"  
  
"Lightning reflexes... That's funny..." Swift said between chuckles.  
  
"So, buy your Reglof Coffee at your local supermarket today and get your daily morning adrenaline rush!"  
  
"All you need for an adrenaline rush is a run at a good 200 MPH..."  
  
The phone on the wall near the table rang. Swift picked up the remote sitting on the table next to his plate, and turned down the TV's volume to silence the annoying bird's voice. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear.  
  
"Hello?" he said.  
  
"Hey Swift, it's me, Kyle," the voice on the other end said.  
  
"Oh, hey Kyle. What is it?"  
  
"Have you seen what was just shown on the news?"  
  
"Yeah. The Land of Darkness is being evacuated. I'm guessing you're having to leave, since Ronoh is down there?"  
  
"That's right. This isn't a problem for me, but Natalie's going to need a place to stay. I was wondering if she could stay in your house while we're going off to war."  
  
"That would be great. She could take care of my house, and look after Sonic too. Sonic can take care of himself easy enough, but the kid needs to learn to clean up after himself. My apartment was a mess after I came home from that parade in New Earth City."  
  
"Heh, maybe my new wife could keep him from doing it, and she'd get practice taking care of a kid before we have our own one."  
  
"Sonic is a handful though, so she'd better watch out."  
  
"That's all right. Better to be stuck with him than in one of those government shelters."  
  
"Yeah. Lemme give you some directions to this place."  
  
After Swift had provided them with how to get to his apartment, Kyle said, "Thanks buddy. I hope my wife likes your son."  
  
"Me too. I'll tell him to let her in when she gets here."  
  
"Bye then! See you out in Chawak!"  
  
"Bye."  
  
Swift hung up to the phone, and turned to his son. He was still eating his dinner. He looked up at his dad.  
  
"What is it, daddy?" Sonic said.  
  
"Sonic, last time I was gone, you were living alone, remember?"  
  
"Uh huh..." Sonic said as he nodded.  
  
"Well, this time you're going to have somebody living with you and taking care of you."  
  
"But why? I can take care of myself!"  
  
"I know that, but you do a terrible job of it. Remember how you broke all those plates that were in the cabinet while I was gone?"  
  
"Umm..."  
  
"And all of the crayon marks on the walls, and the clothes all torn out of our closets and lying all over the floor,"  
  
"But..."  
  
"Oh yeah, and all those hotdogs and candy you bought with the money I left you for food, when I told you to buy healthier stuff."  
  
"But that health food was yucky!"  
  
"Look Sonic, you're a growing boy and you need that healthy food to keep you from getting fat. You don't want to get fat and slow, do you?"  
  
"No..."  
  
"Then you'll eat all the good healthy food that this baby sitter is making."  
  
"What's her name?"  
  
"Her name is Natalie Prower, and she's the wife of Kyle Prower. Remember him? I told you all about Kyle after I got back."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Anyway, she's going to be here tomorrow or the day after that. When she gets here, I want you to do everything she tells you to do and behave for her, okay?"  
  
"Aww...okay..."  
  
"I'm sure she'll be a good babysitter, since Kyle married her. So, be nice to her, so that she'll be nice to you back, okay?"  
  
"Okay..."  
  
"I'm leaving at five in the morning tomorrow, so you won't see me around when you get up. When Natalie gets here, ask for her name and look at her through the spy hole before you let her in. She's a yellow fox and she wears glasses. Can you remember that?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good. After you let her in, be sure to give her a house key so that she can unlock the front door whenever she wants."  
  
Swift stopped talking, trying to think of something else he needed to tell his son.  
  
When he couldn't think of anything else, he said, "So, tell me again, what are you doing when Natalie gets here?"  
  
"I'm going to ask for her name and make sure that it's her before I let her in. I'm going to give her a key so that she can come in here whenever she wants. And...I'll behave for her and do everything she says."  
  
"That's a good boy. Now, it's your bedtime."  
  
"Aww...I wanna stay up!"  
  
"No Sonic, you got to do what you wanted to all day today, so I think it's fair that I get to tell you to do one thing."  
  
"Okay..." Sonic muttered as he sighed. He dragged his feet as he walked off to bed.  
  
"Good night, son," Swift said.  
  
"Good night, daddy," Sonic mumbled as he left the kitchen.  
  
"Little troublemaker," Swift muttered as he settled down into a recliner in the living room, turning up the TV's volume again. "Then again, I guess that's my fault...heh heh..."  
  
Swift watched TV until 10:00 pm, and then he went to bed. He had to get up in the morning, and so he wanted to make sure to get in enough hours of sleep. Not only that, Swift knew he wasn't going to get much sleep out in the war zone, so he wanted to enjoy being able to rest while he could. It was going to be a while before he'd be able to sleep peacefully in his own home again...

The next morning… 

Just as Swift had promised, he was already gone by the time that Sonic had woken up in his room. Sonic sat on the couch in the living room, watching some old cartoon from Earth about a coyote trying to catch this purple bird. It was really funny, because the coyote could never catch the bird, since the bird ran almost as fast as Sonic. It stunk how they never talked though. All they did was show some signs to talk, but Sonic wanted them to talk out loud to him.

_I wish I could run around outside like that today, but I can't. I gotta stay here and wait for Mrs. Prower to show up. I hope she's nice. Dad told me that she was a professor at a college, I think. Is she really smart? I wonder if she knows what the tallest building in the world is. I hope she lets me run around outside and doesn't make me clean up my messes... _

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Sonic jumped up off of the couch. He ran over to the front door, but he was too short to look through the spy hole to see if it was Mrs. Prower. So, he had to drag a chair from the kitchen to stand on. He looked through the small hole, and saw a yellow fox wearing glasses, just like dad had told her to look out for.

"What's your name?" Sonic said.

"Natalie Prower," the fox said. "Is that you, Sonic?"

"Yeah, it's me," Sonic said.

He got down off of his chair and moved it away from the door. He opened the door. Natalie looked down at him and smiled. She had several bags on a cart behind her.

"Aww…you're so cute! You look a lot like Swift."

"Umm, thanks Mrs. Prower..."

Natalie stepped in and looked around the apartment.

"Well, this is a nice house, I guess."

"Yeah, but I always mess it up."

"What do you mean?"

"I really like making messes," Sonic said with a broad grin. "Last time daddy was gone, I broke a lot of dishes and marked up all the walls with crayons."

"What? I can't believe you, wasting good dishes and walls like that!"

"But it's fun!"

"Look Sonic, fixing up after things like that is expensive. I'm going to need to keep an eye on you then if you keep doing that."

"Aww...you're no fun! Daddy doesn't mind too much if I make messes."

"Well, I think your dad needs to give you some more strict discipline then. I'm really going to need to watch you then."

_This is really going to be bad if Mrs. Prower is always like this, _Sonic thought._ I can't make messes and get away with it any more. Oh no, I hope she doesn't make me eat—_

"What foods do you like to eat, Sonic?"

"Chilidogs..."

"What else?"

"Candy, and uhh...that's about it."

"Is that the only thing your daddy gives you?"

"Well, mostly, but sometimes he tries to give me vegetables and stuff, but I usually don't eat it."

"I can't believe that irresponsible hog! He doesn't watch after his child and feed him right!"

_Oh no... She's gonna give me health food now! ARGH!_

"Sonic, don't worry. I'm going to help make you into a perfect young boy. Starting tomorrow, I'll buy us vegetables and fruit to eat, and I'll help you not to make such a mess of this place anymore."

_NO! Daddy! Come back soon!_


	8. Infiltration

**Chapter 8: Infiltration**

**January 14th, 2308 – 2:00 PM – Robotnik's secret base, somewhere in the Land of Darkness**

Unfortunately for Sonic though, Swift was still at war, even seven months after Natalie arrived at the Hedgehog residence. Even though a large amount of Robotnik's forces had been destroyed while he was locked away in prison, there didn't seem to be an end to those robots. More just kept coming to replace their fallen comrades. However, that was about to change. Robotnik's hidden headquarters had finally been discovered, and the Freedomian Army was ready to strike the Robotnik Empire at its source. Naturally, Swift and Kyle were being brought in on this mission. It seemed like wherever those two went, victory over Robotnik quickly followed. They had personally dispatched a lot of his soldiers in Naeco, and had been great help in driving enemy forces from that region. With them around, the Freedomians' spirits were quite high for today's battle...

_...although I'm feeling pretty low right now. _Swift said, as he waded through a noxious smelling river of sludge, with Kyle and several other soldiers nearby.

This dark sewer tunnel was probably the only way into the base that wasn't guarded by a battalion of robotic soldiers, or gun turrets, or tanks, or whatever else that Robotnik had lying around. The plan was to have a force sneak in through this entrance, while the bigger forces took on the exterior defenses as a distraction. However, first this small force had to actually cross through the tunnel first. The hideous stench that permeated the air in the tunnel was enough to send anyone with even the strongest stomach to throwing up. In fact, Swift could hear a few soldiers vomiting behind him.

_ What did Robotnik put in this sludge that makes it smell so horrible?! On second thought...maybe I'm better off not knowing..._

Thankfully, Swift caught the first glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel.

_It couldn't have come soon enough, just like this whole mission. I can't wait to get back home to Sonic. That poor guy's must be having a horrible time with Mrs. Neat Freak Prower. While it is nice that she's getting him to do chores and clean up messes, I can't allow her to stop Sonic from running. In my last phone call with him, he was like "Daddy! Stop Mrs. Prower! She won't let me run around outside alone because she's scared I'll get hurt! But I used to run around all day alone when you were here and I never got hurt!" And then Mrs. Prower took away the phone and said "Mr. Hedgehog, I'm sorry, but I will not put your child in danger like you do. I can't believe you let him run around alone all day long! He's going to get hurt sometime! He could run over a cliff, or hit a wall, or something! Anyway, I wish you success in the war, and hope that when you return you'll teach your boy some proper manners like I am! Goodbye, Mr. Hedgehog." And she slammed down the phone before I could get a word in._

Swift sighed, carefully stepping around what looked like a rotting piece of cardboard in the puke green water.

_Don't worry Sonic. Once we've captured this base, I can come home. I'll be seeing you soon, son..._

---

Meanwhile, Robotnik was sweating like a pig in the control room within the base. This base held a tremendous amount of resources, and it would be a severe blow to him if they fell under the Freedomian Army's control. In addition to the base and the army stationed here, he would also lose vehicles, fuel, metals to produce more robots, and some of his top-secret projects, including his roboticizers. He'd be reduced to fighting with what little was left in a small, auxiliary base he had hidden elsewhere in the Land of Darkness.

_All these years of collecting materials to build my army, all of the time needed to construct this base, all of the resources, will be gone just like that after today. And Swift and Kyle are here as well... Damn those two! Everywhere they go they leave a path of destruction in my forces, and I doubt that today will be any different. I am going to make them suffer, somehow, some way. They will regret the day they first laid eyes on me. But how can I do that?_

He turned to the security monitors, deciding to see if he could find where the two of them were in the base. After a few minutes of changing viewpoints to potential entrances to the base, he spied Swift and Kyle slogging their way into the base through one of the sewage pipes, with other Freedomian soldiers. Robotnik mentally ran through his head the fastest route from the exit of the sewage plant to the control room he was in.

_If they knew the route, they could be here in several minutes. Of course, they shouldn't have a map though, so they'll be lost. Wait a minute...what if I actually GUIDED them somewhere instead of letting them run around on their own? I could block off all routes except for the one I want them to follow, and set up a trap for them on that route. They're the Freedomian Army's primary offensive force. If I neutralize them, my chances of winning would dramatically increase. Plus, maybe I could make use of those secret projects I have stored here..._

Robotnik cackled. At first, he had thought that he would lose for sure to the Freedomian Army here, but a plan for victory was quickly forming in his head. He started to bark orders over the communication system to his soldiers, organizing them into the proper positions for his plan.

_Look out, you Freedomians. It's not over yet!_

---

Finally, Swift and Kyle, along with the rest of their unit, had made it to the end of the sewer pipe. They were now standing inside a small concrete room, lit only by bare fluorescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Pumping equipment was working in the background, as it continued to push more of that horrible sludge into the sewer pipe. After everyone had gotten out of the water, the leader of their unit, who was a raccoon, started to bark orders.

"Okay...Swift and Kyle, you know the drill," he said.

The two of them nodded.

"Move on ahead of us and clear out a path. We'll follow up behind you and take out what you miss. Only this time, don't leave us behind..."

"Heh, sure Heath," Swift said.

Swift was very happy, now that he was actually being encouraged to run straight into the battle. His superiors had yelled at him and Kyle before for their reckless behavior...at least until they saw that their tactics had won them battles. The two of them were fast enough to dodge all attacks the enemy could throw at them, and could attack back just as quickly. Swift's spines could carve through just about anything like it was made of paper. Meanwhile, Kyle had received a special lightweight assault rifle. While it had less stopping power than the standard rifle, it was easier to maneuver with and easier to use. That meant he could easily aim and shoot while running about at high speeds.

While stepping towards the nearest exit door, Swift said to Kyle, "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Kyle said as he came over. "Let's do it."

"See you later, slowpokes!" Swift shouted, as the two of them hightailed it through the doorway out of the room.

The two of them ran down a long metallic hallway. Alarms blared in the background, but the two of them barely noticed. Strangely, they didn't encounter any enemy forces in this hallway.

_Well, maybe Robotnik wasn't expecting an attack from this direction._

The two of them screeched to a stop at the end of the hall, leaving deep scorch marks on the floor. The end of the hall was blocked by a large metallic door, which looked quite durable. Swift tried to carve it down with his spines as he went into a spin dash. All he succeeded in was bashing his head really hard on the door.

"It's too strong..." Kyle said. "We'll have to wait for the others. Maybe we can blast it open with explosives."

Swift picked himself up off the floor, his head hurting from the impact. However, he managed a nod and stood up against one wall of the hallway. While hitting his head had hurt really badly, the pain was subsiding quickly.

After a few moments, Swift muttered, "Like I said before, slowpokes..."

He angrily tapped his foot on the floor and crossed his arms. Kyle checked his rifle over to fill the time.

_Will they just FREAKING HURRY UP?! _Swift thought.

Swift glanced around the part of the hallway they were in. It's not like there was much to look at though. Apart from the heavy metal door, there was a blue square on one wall, which surrounded the letters B4, which obviously indicated what floor they were on. Another doorway was about twenty feet back down the hall, although it was open. He could see the bottom of a metal shutter sticking out from the top of the doorway, a security shutter.

_Wouldn't it suck if that thing closed down on us?_

A beat after that thought, a red light started flashing above the doorway. Swift noticed that the metal shutter was starting to rattle...

"KYLE!" Swift screamed.

Kyle turned to look at him in surprise.

"The shutter's going to close down on us! HURRY!" Swift said as he sprinted out through the shutter's doorway.

He made it through easily enough, and turned around to face Kyle. He was about to get through the door...but the shutter slammed down in front of him, blocking Swift's view of him. There was a loud thump on the other side of the shutter, as Kyle slammed hard into it.

"NO!" Swift shouted. "KYLE!"

---

Kyle bounced back away from the shutter as he collided with it. He flew through the air for a moment, and scraped along the floor as he crashed down onto it. His rifle clattered noisily on the floor after he dropped it. While he was on the floor, he could hear Swift scraping up the other side of the shutter with his spines.

In between the scrapings, he heard Swift shout, "Don't worry! I'll get you out of there! Just hold on!"

However, the words were barely audible, even though it sounded like he was yelling at the top of his lungs. That meant that he had a thick wall to break through. He just hoped that Swift could manage it as fast as he could. Kyle climbed up off of the floor, and collected his rifle again. Unfortunately, when he looked at the wall, he couldn't even tell that Swift was hitting the wall on the other side, apart from the sounds that barely seeped through the door.

_I'm not sure why that shutter came down, but it's bad news, that's for sure. Does Robotnik know we're down here?_

He then noticed a hissing noise above his head. Kyle looked up towards the ceiling. A purple gas was seeping in through the ventilation covers. One sniff of that stuff made Kyle feel rather tired. By two sniffs he could barely stand up.

_Sleeping gas!_

Kyle held his nose, hoping that Swift could break through the shutter before the gas knocked him out. He didn't know what would happen next after he was asleep, but he knew it wouldn't be anything good. However, it looked like Swift wasn't going to make it in time. Kyle was getting very tired from the gas. From what he could see through his rapidly declining vision, the door didn't look any different on this side from when Swift had set to work on it. A few moments later, Kyle was lying down on the floor, his eyes very heavy from sleepiness. He just managed to glimpse the outline of one of Robotnik's soldiers standing over him before his eyes finally closed shut out of exhaustion.

_Too late...this is it... _He thought before he finally went fully unconscious.

---

Swift was still hammering away on the shutter from the other side, but with little success. The shutter was just too strong to break down with only his spines. Meanwhile, the rest of his unit caught up to him.

"What happened?" Heath said.

Swift stopped and said, "Kyle is trapped on the other side of this door! We need to save him!"

Strangely, as the last words of his sentence rolled off of his tongue, the shutter opened behind him. Swift swung around to see behind the shutter. He saw the wisps of some strange gas wafting in the room. He felt a little tired when the smell reached his nose, but fortunately there wasn't enough of it to knock him out. However, when he looked the room over, Kyle was nowhere to be found. Only his rifle was lying on the floor.

"Kyle..." Swift muttered, picking up his rifle. "Where are you?"

"He's coming to me, Swift," a voice said from a speaker in the wall. It was Dr. Robotnik's voice.

"What?!"

"My robotic servants are taking him to me right now. I was hoping I'd catch you as well, but Kyle by himself is just fine by me. Come to the laboratory on the top floor of my base, if you want to see him again."

"I'll be there, you bastard!" Swift said.

The other door that Swift had tried to break open before Kyle was captured opened up. Swift began to step towards the door.

"Don't go, Swift!" Heath yelled. "It's gotta be a trap!"

"I don't care! I'm not going to let Kyle die!"

Swift sprinted down the next section of the hall, leaving his unit behind again.


	9. Last Sanctuary

**Chapter 9: Last Sanctuary**

**January 14th, 2308 – 2:30 PM – Robotnik's secret base, somewhere in the Land of Darkness**

Swift sprinted down the corridors of the secret base, angry at himself for not being able to help Kyle, and angry at Robotnik for taking away his best friend. He clutched at Kyle's rifle, the only article that he had left of him.

_Not Kyle...not Kyle...I'll never let you kill him!_

He was so enraged that he practically ran on autopilot through the base. He came to a tank hangar, and a group of robot soldiers stood before him. He didn't even bother to slow down as he plowed right through the middle of them with a spin dash. They were knocked aside as easily as if they were bowling pins. Moving on through the room, Swift noticed a group of robots that looked something like robot versions of Freedomians.

_I wonder what was the point of designing them like that...? _Swift briefly thought.

These robots were smart enough however to not stand in one big group where he could easily destroy all of them. Some of them spread out and took cover behind parked tanks and boxes. They sniped at him with their laser guns, but Swift was far too fast to be hit by the shots. He tore right through any Freedomian-like robot he saw that was in his way. As he crashed into them, the pieces of them were sent clattering to the floor.

Moving on, Swift escaped out of the tank hangar and ran down a hallway. Shutters started to descend from the ceiling, but Swift was simply too fast to be caught by them. He raced under all of them before they could close.

_Sorry, Robotnik, but I absolutely refuse to fall into the same trap that Kyle did._

He came to the stairs to the next floor, and rushed up them as quickly as possible. He ran up several flights of stairs towards the top floor, but unfortunately the door to the top floor was locked with a card reader. The door looked like the one that Swift had tried to break down just before Kyle was caught, and so Swift knew better than to try breaking this one down as well. He left the stairwell, and ran down more halls, looking for another stairway to the top floor. Drone guns shot at him as he flew under them, but like just about everything else that was shooting at him, the shots were far too slow to get him.

Finally, he found another stairway, and rushed up to the top floor. As he got over the top of the last step, he noticed an important-looking doorway at the end of the hall. It was decorated with a golden emblem, which looked something like Robotnik's face.

_No doubt that's the lab the doctor was talking about._

He hurriedly sprinted towards the door. Suddenly, a shutter started to come down in front of him. Swift kneeled down as he ran, sending himself into a roll. The spines on his back tore up chunks of the metal floor as he wheeled over the floor. He just slipped under the door, but he did feel one of his spines actually touch the shutter as he went under. As he reached the door at the end of the hallway, he rolled into a stand and stopped. The shutter slammed closed behind him.

_There's only one way to go now, and that's through this door,_ he thought. _Not that it matters to me. I'd never turn back now._

As he stepped towards the door, it slid open automatically. He found himself standing inside a room that definitely looked like some kind of a laboratory, although he couldn't tell what it was used to study. A massive computer dominated one wall of the room, while on the other side of the room were several glass tubes. All of them were empty, and Swift couldn't tell what they were used for. Since there didn't seem to be anyone in this room, Swift decided he would go over to the next room.

This next room definitely looked like the perfect setting for a final boss battle, assuming that's what the doctor was wanting. The room was large and spherical. Swift was standing on a broad catwalk that circled the perimeter of the room, which allowed him to see what was in the middle of the room perfectly. There was some kind of a machine in the middle of the room...

The device in the middle of the room looked like some kind of a large cannon, which was pointed straight up in the air. There was a small windowed booth in the platform under the base of the cannon, which was probably where the operator controlled it. The whole shaft of the cannon softly glowed with a strange green energy. Swift wasn't sure what this thing was, but it had to be bad news.

Swift began to step towards the cannon, but a vague reddish shape briefly blurred past in front of his eyes. At first, he thought it was his eyes playing tricks on him, but then the red thing shot past in front of his vision again. Eventually, the red blur was circling around him over and over, until finally it screeched to a halt in front of him. The blur was actually some kind of a red robot fox.

_That's strange, because it looks like a robot version of Kyle. Wait...what if that IS Kyle?_

"Kyle, is that you?"

"Yes, that is him, Swift!" Robotnik's voice called out from below.

Swift looked towards the pit. He hesitantly walked past the robot version of Kyle, and looked down into the middle of the room. He saw Robotnik standing near the machine there.

"What have you done to him?!" Swift yelled at him, pointing back at Kyle.

"I took the liberty of putting him through a special procedure I call 'roboticization'."

"What the hell is roboticization?"

"It transforms a living breathing creature into a superior robotic being, which does not require any food, water, or sleep, or anything else a fragile living body would require. But more importantly, it removes their free will, and from then on they obey all commands I give them. This makes them the perfect soldiers for me!"

Swift turned around to look at Kyle. Instead of a fluffy tail like a fox would normally have, the tail was covered with hard metal spikes. Violent red irises in soulless black pits replaced the sparkling blue irises and the white sclera of the old eyes. The beautiful, soft red fur coat had been transformed into cold crimson red metal. The visage of the once friendly, charming, sensible Kyle 'Kilometers' Prower had been all but destroyed.

"You damn scum you..." Swift said, turning back to Robotnik. "Taking away a living, breathing person's soul, and then replacing their bodies with this terrible metal armor. You deserve nothing more than death for doing this!"

"That's true...but you're not clean either, Swift."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember those robots you destroyed along the way that looked like Freedomians?"

Swift suddenly froze in place, remembering those robots.

_Oh no... Was I really killing innocent people instead of his soldiers? _

"You're a murderer now Swift, just like me," Robotnik said with a smirk.

Swift was fighting back tears, but was unsuccessful. He pointed Kyle's rifle at Robotnik.

He screamed out, "YOU'RE THE WORST OF THE WORST! FORCING INNOCENT PEOPLE TO FIGHT FOR YOU LIKE THAT!"

"So what? You Freedomians are in my way of world domination. You should be grateful I'm even letting your kind of funny looking multi-colored furballs work in my army, because I can't stand any of you."

"Why do you hate Freedomians so much Robotnik?"

"Humans should be the only race to rule the universe, that's why! Unfortunately, all the other humans have gone soft in the last 100 years, supporting your kind instead of destroying it. They're even more pathetic than you Freedomians! You should all be thrown into zoos, or made to be slaves, or killed for food, just like the animals on Earth! Anyway, if the other humans can't get the job done, then I will! KYLE!"

Kyle swiftly stopped next to the railing overlooking Robotnik.

"Yes master..." he said in an eerie emotionless voice.

"Destroy Swift!" Robotnik shouted.

"As you wish," Kyle spoke again in the same voice.

He turned to face Swift, and assumed a combat stance.

_I was expecting a final boss battle, but this is not who I thought I'd be fighting against!_

"I'd like to watch the fight," Robotnik said, "But I'm afraid I have to destroy the rest of the Freedomian Army now before they can take over the base. Have fun you two!"

"Kyle!" Swift shouted. "Come on! Don't listen to him!"

"I serve Master Robotnik," Kyle said. "I will obey all his commands."

Kyle ran straight at Swift. As he got close, he spun around so that he swung his spiky metal tail in an arc. Swift went into a back flip to dodge the attack.

As he landed on the floor, he said, "He's our enemy! I'm your friend! Come on, don't let this roboticization stuff mess with your head!"

"I cannot do that. Robotnik told me to destroy you, and I will obey all of his commands."

Swift dodged Kyle as he swung his spiked tail at him again. As he prepared to avoid the next attack, he heard a loud whirring noise that was growing stronger by the second. It was coming from the pit in the middle of the room. The green glow that Swift had noticed on the machine in the middle of the room was getting brighter. He looked towards the control booth on the bottom of the machine, and saw Robotnik at work through the glass windows. Swift looked up to the ceiling, and saw that a hole was opening in the top of the room. The cannon started to extend upwards through the hole.

"Kyle," Swift said, aiming the rifle at the robotic fox. "I don't want to hurt you...but I will do it if that's what I have to do to stop Robotnik!"

Kyle charged at Swift, pulling back one of his arms. It looked like he was preparing to make a punch at Swift as he charged past. Swift aimed the rifle at Kyle's chest area, and opened fire. The rounds pinged off of the metal, doing little damage. The bullets made some dents in the armor on Kyle's chest, and they slowed down his run a little, but otherwise there didn't seem to be any effect.

The robot fox easily reached Swift and punched him in the head. The fist impacted Swift's head so hard that he was sent spinning through the air. Swift screamed out in pain. It felt like he had been hit hard in the face with a baseball. The rifle fell from his hands as flew into the air. He collapsed heavily to the floor, and held the bulging spot in his head. Soon afterwards, Kyle picked Swift up off of the floor, and threw him against the wall. The wind was knocked out of Swift from the impact. He still felt a little dazed from the punch to his face. A shadow fell over Swift, and he looked up to see robot Kyle towering over him.

"I was expecting more from you, Swift," Kyle said.

He punched and kicked Swift several times in rapid succession, before turning around and swinging his tail at him. The body armor Swift was wearing stopped some of the impact of the spikes as they scraped across his chest and arms, but where it did hit flesh it tore gashes that started bleeding heavily. The tail also tore deep tears in the wall next to Swift, and ripped an electric wire in half. The bottom half of the wire dangled down to the floor, spitting sparks all over the place.

Kyle stepped back and said, "Now, I will finish you off, to comply with my master's wishes."

---

During this time, Kyle was operating completely under Robotnik's commands, just the effect the roboticization process was supposed to create. His true personality had tried to fight back against the mind control, but it was to no success. Even now, when Kyle was killing his best friend and his true personality had fought as hard as it could to regain control, it was in vain. Swift would be dead in a manner of moments, and there was nothing that Kyle could think of that could stop him. However, there was one small error that he had made that he didn't notice...

As he drew back his tail for one final slash at Swift's head, he noticed Swift grabbing at the electric wire that had been cut during the last slash. Kyle tried to hit Swift quickly, before he could make use of the wire, but Swift was too fast. He jabbed the electric wire at Kyle's chest. As the wire hit Kyle, the electricity surged through his metal body, all the way up to his brain. As he collapsed to the floor, the shock to his brain screwed up his programming.

_Destroy Swift... De...story...S...ERROR_

_I...serve Master Robotnik. I...will obey all...ERROR_

_ERROR...Progra...m...damaged...ERROR..._

As the program fizzled out, Kyle's true personality was free to regain control once again, and it did just that.

_What...? Am I back? Do I have my free will again?_

Kyle opened his eyes. His vision was tinted red from looking through the robotic eyes the roboticization procedure had given him. He also had a heads-up-display (HUD) showing his estimated power supply as a percentage, and it was the same way in estimating damage to various parts of his body. He got up off of the floor. He raised his hands up to his face, and moved the metal fingers back and forth.

_Man does it feel great to be in control again! But...what about Swift?!_

Kyle turned to Swift, all bloodied from all of the slashes he had given him moments before.

"Swift!" Kyle said. "I'm really sorry! I tried to fight it, but I just couldn't fight the mind control no matter how hard I tried!"

"Huh? Aren't you gonna kill me?" Swift said.

"No, of course not. That electric shock you gave me before must have destroyed the mind control program. The real Kyle is back in control again! Anyway, I wish I could have stopped myself from hurting you, but I couldn't do it."

"Don't blame yourself, Kyle. It wasn't your fault, it was Robotnik's fault."

"How badly are you hurt?" Kyle said as he moved closer. He kneeled down next to Swift as he sat against the wall.

"Been better," Swift said, managing a small laugh.

Kyle laughed a bit too, remembering how he had said the same thing back during the battle of Reppoc. Suddenly, the moment of joy was blown as the noise of the cannon in the middle of the room suddenly grew to a deafening level. Both of them looked at the machine. The green glow on the machine was so bright it could have almost been the sun. Then, there was a flash of light, and the whole room was full of the same green glow.

"ARGH!" Swift grunted.

"What is it?" Kyle said, turning back to him.__

"I don't know...but for some reason this glowing is making me feel weaker. I'm starting to feel like I've been running for several days without stopping..."

"Why isn't it affecting me?"

"I have no idea. But stop that thing! Hurry!"

"Okay!" Kyle said. He turned around and picked up his rifle where Swift had dropped it. He leaped over the railing and rushed towards the cannon, hoping he could stop it before it was too late.

---

Robotnik sat giddily inside the control booth of the cannon, which he called the Life Energy Ray. Basically, this was how it worked. The green glow from this device penetrated living bodies, and slowly destroyed red blood cells inside the victim's body. This resulted in energy and oxygen not being delivered to cells, tissues, and organs, and consequently resulted in death if the victim was left in the beam long enough. It could penetrate through most walls, and its range was large enough to cover his entire base, so he could destroy the entire Freedomian Army from here with very little effort by using this device. Also, since it only affected living things, his robot army was immune to the weapon, which made it even easier to use.

This weapon was currently only in the prototype stages, but it seemed to be doing its job well enough. There was a security monitor hooked up inside the control room, and so Robotnik watched as the Freedomian soldiers rolled on the floor in agony as the ray destroyed their red blood cells. Meanwhile, Robotnik was safe and sound inside the control booth, which had been specially shielded so that the green rays did not penetrate inside and kill him as well.

_If the roboticizer was my greatest creation, then this is without a doubt my second best! This thing more or less guarantees instant victory against living opponents! And it works so well, even though it's only in the prototype stage. Although...it would be nicer if they would die faster. _

Robotnik was hoping that it would kill in 30 seconds or less, but it didn't look like any of the soldiers were going to be dead that soon. Some of them still had enough energy to roll all over on the floor as the ray killed their red blood cells. It looked like it would take at least a few minutes more...

A red shape flew down past one of his windows. It was so subtle that Robotnik thought at first it was his eyes tricking him, but then Kyle's robotic face appeared in the window. He pointed a small assault rifle at the glass of one of the control room windows.

"NO!" Robotnik screamed.

Kyle opened fire on the window, the glass beginning to crack where he was shooting. While the glass was strong enough to repel the rays from the cannon, Robotnik didn't test it to see exactly how much punishment it could take. Kyle finished emptying his magazine and stopped to look at his handiwork. There were several deep cracks, but the pane of glass hadn't been broken through...yet. Kyle pulled out another clip from a pocket and reloaded.

_What is he doing?! Did the mind control wear off or something? This is bad...I roboticized Kyle, so he is no longer a flesh and blood creature. That means that the ray doesn't affect him at all. It's only a matter of time before he breaks in here then...and when that happens, I'll have to turn off the ray. If I don't, the ray will kill me too._

Meanwhile, Kyle finished unloading another clip. The robot fox shook his head in annoyance at how little damage the bullets were doing, and pulled a small, dark object out of his pocket, a grenade.

"DON'T!" Robotnik shouted.

Kyle pulled the pin out of the grenade, and put it down on the window ledge just outside the glass. He ran the other way to dive for cover. Robotnik wanted to be able to do something to stop the grenade, but there was nothing he could do. He huddled underneath the control console to shield himself from the explosion. With a muffled boom from the outside, the glass of one of the window panes shot inside, clattering all over the floor and making a mighty racket. The green glow penetrated into the room... While Robotnik wanted to keep it running as long as possible, it was no good if he died because he kept it on. Robotnik quickly jumped up and reached for the cutoff switch. With one pull of the lever, the loud humming from the Life Energy Ray stopped, and the green glow dissipated quickly.

"That was close..." Robotnik muttered.

"Don't think you're safe yet, Robotnik," he heard Kyle's voice say.

Robotnik looked up, and Kyle was peering in through the broken window. His eerie red eyes made him look absolutely terrifying. Robotnik backed up against one wall of the control room in fear. Meanwhile, Kyle climbed inside, aiming his rifle at Robotnik. His spiked tail flashed back and forth behind him, as if to keep Robotnik from attempting to run past him. The doctor was trapped with nowhere to go. He was finished.


	10. Victories and Defeats

**Chapter 10: Victories...and Defeats**

**January 14th, 2308 – 3:00 PM – Robotnik's secret base, somewhere in the Land of Darkness**

"It's over, Robotnik," Kyle said, his rifle pointed at him. "Hands up."

"Do you need to keep me safe again this time?" Robotnik said, as he raised his hands.

"Yes...but don't push me," Kyle said, with an angry undertone. "Because of what you've done to me, and what you've forced me to do to my best friend, I'll have no problem with shooting you if you give me a reason to do it. Now let's go."

After Kyle patted down Robotnik for weapons and came up with nothing, he led Kyle over to the door of the Life Energy Ray's control room, and unlocked the door for him. They walked up the stairs to the catwalk where Kyle and Swift had fought earlier.

As they approached the still form of Swift, Kyle stopped next to a the wall and said, "Come over here, Robotnik."

Robotnik obeyed. Kyle pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and put one cuff around a narrow pipe on the wall. The other one he cuffed to one of Robotnik's hands, so that he was chained to the wall.

"Try anything and I kill you," Kyle said.

"No need to remind me," Robotnik muttered.

He pulled off his glasses with his free hand and tried to clean them by rubbing them against his red and yellow Overseer shirt. Kyle walked over to where Swift was lying on the floor.

"Swift, I got Robotnik," Kyle said to him. "We can get out of here now."

"That's good…" Swift said, slowly raising his head to look at Kyle. He weakly raised his hand to him. "Help me up...that green ray thing really weakened me, and I can barely move."

"Too bad it didn't kill you..." Robotnik muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Kyle said, pointing his rifle at Robotnik.

"Nothing..." Robotnik said.

Kyle turned around and helped Swift to his feet. He wobbled a bit, but Kyle thought he'd make a full recovery if he got medical attention quickly enough.

"Thanks..." Swift said.

"Think nothing of it," Kyle said.

"Come on, let's get Robotnik back to the feds again."

"I'll be able to go home and see my son Sonic again... We can go fly in the plane, just like I told him we'd do when I get back."

Suddenly, loud, ominous footsteps could be heard in the distance. With how heavy they were, something huge must have been coming towards the chamber. It sounded like about four different sets of metal feet as the footsteps drew closer.

"You Freedomians...you think you've already won. Remember what I said the last time you caught me? I'll say it again in case you forgot: This is only the beginning."

A massive door opened on the opposite end of the chamber from Robotnik, Kyle, and Swift. Standing in the doorway were four massive combat robots, and each of them was piloted by what looked like a roboticized human. All of the robots were equipped with heavy-duty laser cannons and rocket launchers. They aimed their weapons at Swift and Kyle. However, Robotnik waved a hand at them, apparently signaling them to hold fire.

"These are four helpers who have been in my employ since the summer of 2306. Remember the kidnappings of the Earth generals at that time? I was the one who kidnapped them. They were also the first ones to experience the miracle of roboticization. I must admit, they've been quite useful to me."

"I can't believe this," Swift said. "You even roboticize your own species!"

"So what? Ah well...we've talked long enough. FIRE!"

The robots opened fire with their laser cannons upon Swift and Kyle. Kyle started to run, but he had to move slower since he was dragging Swift alongside him.

"Run! Leave me!" Swift screamed.

"No! I'm not leaving you to die!" Kyle yelled back.

Suddenly, Swift cried out in pain as he was pushed into Kyle from some kind of impact, as if a giant hand was shoving him. Kyle looked at him to see what he'd yelled about. He saw a smoking black hole on the right side of Swift's upper chest. He'd been hit with one of the lasers. Kyle kept running, unable to stop due to the constant barrage of laser fire.

Swift murmured, "Take care of...Sonic..."

He then fell limp against Kyle's body as Kyle continued to run, his feet dragging on the floor instead of trying to run with him.

"NO! SWIFT!"

Another laser hit Swift's body, and the impact of the shot sent Swift toppling out of Kyle's grip. Kyle turned around to attempt to pick up Swift again, but there were just too many lasers being fired in his direction to get to him. He was forced to retreat. Kyle saw a doorway coming up on the left, and ducked inside it to seek cover. He realized he was now inside the roboticization chamber again. He was now safe from the laser fire, but he hardly cared. Swift had been killed, and it had hit him harder than any physical blow ever could.

"USE THE ROCKETS!" he heard Robotnik scream.

Kyle jumped away from the wall bordering the next room as he heard the whoosh of missiles being fired. The ensuing explosions blew the wall away, and debris collapsed from the ceiling of the roboticization chamber. Within seconds, Kyle was cut off from the room that Robotnik was in by a wall of rubble.

_Damn! Robotnik is going to get away if I don't get through this wall in time! If only Swift were still alive, he could probably blast right through this crap in about five seconds..._

He pulled out the last of his grenades, and threw them at the top of the pile of rubble, hoping he could blast a hole through. The explosions were massive, but after the smoke cleared he could only see a hole in the wall about as big in diameter as that of a basketball. He'd have to dig the rest of the way. Kyle leaped up to the hole, although he found it a little more challenging than normal due to his heavy metal body. He stood on a small ledge next to the hole, and started to dig. On the other side, he could hear the robot warriors plodding away, probably with Robotnik in tow. He had to hurry up. The digging seemed to take for hours, and the rocks he had to clear away appeared endless.

Finally, he managed to make a hole big enough for him to squeeze through. As he pulled himself back into the chamber that the robots had been in, he could see the last one of them going through a large door on the lower floor. Unfortunately, it was starting to close. Kyle jumped down to the lower part of the floor, and charged headlong towards the rapidly closing opening. He reached the door just as they slammed shut.

"Damn it!"

Kyle clawed at the doors with his metal hands, but it was useless. He reached for his grenades, and then remembered he'd used up the last of them on getting through that pile of debris earlier. He hammered on a keypad next to the door, but it required a password that he knew he'd never figure out in time. Finally, he resigned himself to the inevitable, and slumped down on the floor, his back against the locked door. __

_He got away...again! I should have shot him when I had the chance!_

Kyle went over to where Swift's body was, and kneeled down next to it.

_Damn you Robotnik, damn you! You killed my best friend! The next time I see you I'm gonna rip your heart out!_

Kyle picked up his assault rifle, and started randomly shooting at the walls in the room, screaming his rage at Robotnik all the while. He went down inside the green ray's control booth and shot up the control console. He then started to tear out anything he could lay his hands on in the room. The monitors hanging from the ceiling, the control buttons, the levers, anything. If Kyle couldn't destroy the real Robotnik, then the next best thing he could think of doing would be to destroy one of his creations. When he was finally finished, he found himself standing inside a mess of twisted metal, destroyed circuitry, clipped wires, and broken glass from the monitors. His rage satisfied with the destruction, all he had left now was his sadness for Swift's death. He went back over to Swift's corpse again.

_Swift...Swift...why couldn't I save you? It's not fair... You saved me when you destroyed that mind control program, but I couldn't save you back... I feel like such a weakling, not being able to do what you did for me... I'll make up for it though. If I can't save you, then I'll save your boy from having no family. I'll raise your son the best I can...I promise you that Swift... _

Suddenly, he heard voices on the other side of the pile of rubble blocking the roboticization chamber from this room. It sounded like Freedomians... They'd finally managed to catch up to Swift and Kyle, but it was just too bad that they were too late to help...

"What the hell happened here...?" he heard Heath say on the other side of the wall.

"HEATH! It's me, Kyle!" Kyle said as he put down Swift's body.

"KYLE! You're alive! What's wrong with your voice? You sound a little like a robot or something. Is Swift with you?"

"He's...he's...dead..."

"Oh..."

Surprised voices could be heard on the other side of the wall.

"The great Swift is dead?"

"What killed him?"

"I don't believe it!"

"Can you blast open this wall for me?" Kyle yelled.

"Yeah...hold on..." Heath yelled back.

Somebody on the other side of the wall who had a grenade launcher unloaded a few shots in the wall, and finally managed to create an opening large enough to walk through. Freedomian soldiers swarmed into the room. Upon seeing Kyle's new robot look with Swift's body at his feet, they all aimed their rifles at him.

"Don't shoot! It's me, Kyle!"

"At ease, men," Heath said. "Let's not shoot first and ask questions later."

The soldiers lowered their rifles.

"Kyle, if that is you, what happened?"

Kyle explained everything that he had seen, from getting caught in the first hallway of the base and later being roboticized, right up to where he stopped the green ray cannon thing and Robotnik managing to escape.

"That's horrible..." Heath said.

"Did anybody manage to catch Robotnik after I lost him?" Kyle asked.

Heath shook his head.

"Afraid not. We saw this big ship taking off from the docking bay at the back of the base, and Robotnik was more than likely on that thing."

"I see..." Kyle said dejectedly.

"But hey, we did take over his headquarters, didn't we?"

"I know, but it just doesn't feel like a victory with Robotnik still on the loose, and with Swift dead..."

"I guess you're right..."

**Two weeks later...at the Presidential Mansion…**

Similar to the aftermath of the battle of Reppoc, Kyle went to New Earth City to once again be personally thanked by President Tree for his work. However, Kyle was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him during this time. His mind was wrapped too tightly around that final fight in that chamber with the green cannon. What made it worse was that he was a robot who never had to sleep, so there was no good night's rest to help him easily tear his thoughts away from it.

_Me being roboticized and then put in that chamber...told to wait for Swift... He came...Robotnik told me to destroy him... I had no choice in the manner, his mind control program steering my body instead of me... He just managed to shock me back into my normal mind... I tried to stop Robotnik's green ray, but I was too slow... Swift...he died...when I was trying to save him... Then...Robotnik got away... I'm so stupid... There were so many ways I could have made it right... I could have tried harder to resist the mind control... I could have shot Robotnik after I caught him... I could have run faster while I was trying to get away with Swift... It's my fault...it's all my fault... Kyle...Kyle..._

"Kyle," President Tree said.

"Wha...what?" Kyle said, becoming aware of his surroundings again. He realized was still in the office of President Tree in the Presidential Palace.

"I was telling you something important," the human president said.

"What was that?"

"Did you know that Freedomians were never given the highest level of technology of the humans?"

"Well...I've always had that feeling...I mean, look at everything Robotnik had, and your spaceships and other things as well."

"Yes, you're right. My predecessors wouldn't allow Freedomians to ever have access to our highest technology. They feared your race, they were afraid it would become superior to the human race if given the tools."

"Oh, I see."

"However, I am far more willing to trust your people. I think your kind deserves the technology after dealing with a menace like Robotnik."

"Really?"

"Yes. I have finished working to enact a law that will get rid of the embargo on high technology to Freedomians, and I am publicly announcing it today."

"That's great."

"It's great for you on a personal level as well, Kyle."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...after we heard about you being 'roboticized', as you called it, I had the roboticization equipment removed from Robotnik's base and taken to Elona University. Right now, your scientist wife Natalie is working on a way to reverse this roboticization process, so that you can be returned back to normal again. This new technology I'm allowing to be distributed should help the research greatly."

"Really?"

"Yes. We have also given you a home to live in there for as long as you need to. For your commitment to your duties, this is the least I could do for you."

"Thank you, sir!" Kyle said, as he saluted.

"Heh, at ease, soldier."

Kyle pulled his hand down.

"Anyway, thank you so much for what you've done for me...and for every other Freedomian on the planet."

"You're welcome, Kyle."

_I've always been a little untrusting of humans. Robotnik helped increase that phobia greatly; probably because he's one of the few humans I've ever spoken with. They usually don't come to Planet Freedom, and even if they do most of them don't venture far away from New Earth City. I've never known much about them, which is also why I've never fully trusted them. Maybe humans can be good, judging from President Tree... Surely not all of them are like Robotnik?_

"Anyway, you should head on home. Your wife has a surprise for you, and she's been working on it for quite some time now."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you, or it wouldn't be a surprise then, would it?"

"Oh, I guess you're right...heh..."

"Well, go on. I've got a private aircraft nearby waiting to take you back to Elona."

"Thanks again for everything, Mr. Tree."

"It's no problem. Goodbye!"

"Goodbye!"

Kyle walked out of the palace, wondering what kind of a surprise Natalie could have waiting for him.


	11. A New Family

**Chapter 11: A New Family**

**January 30th, 2308 – 9:00 PM – Prower Residence, Forest Town, Elona**

Kyle stepped out of the taxi in front of his new home in Elona, which the President had purchased for him and Natalie. Even in the dark, he could tell it was quite possibly the best home that he had ever lived in. While it wasn't exactly a mansion in size, it was a very impressively sized house. The two-story wooden house was a handsome dark green, with white trim. It had a large front porch, which was bordered by large flowerbeds that bloomed with every color of the rainbow. A broad, neatly cut green lawn surrounded the house. All in all, there was no comparison between this place and their old apartment in Ronoh. He took his bags out of the car and walked up onto the front porch.

_This is first time I've ever lived in a house where I have a front yard, flowerbeds, a porch, and all those other things... I wonder if the surprise was the front yard and the flowerbeds. The President said she'd been working on it for a while...and it would take a while to make it look this nice..._

He stepped in through the unlocked front door, dropping his bags to the floor as he looked around. The interior of the house was equally as grand than the outside. The white staircase in the front hall was quite impressive, with its fancy guardrail and broad steps. The walls were a slightly dark red, offset by the white stairs. A beautiful chandelier hung from the high ceiling of the room, providing strong light. Kyle would have examined it further, but he heard a soft cry from the top of the stairs. It sounded something like a baby's cry.

_A baby? What's a baby doing— WAIT A MINUTE! _

Kyle hurriedly ran up the broad stairs to the second floor. He followed the baby's cries down a hall to a cracked-open bedroom door. He pushed the door open and jumped into the room. On a large bed in the middle of the room was Natalie, dressed in a nightgown. And in her hands...was a kit. The baby quieted down from crying as Natalie hummed a song to it, and then she looked up at Kyle.

"Oh, you've finally come back Kyle! Wow...you look worse than I thought you would, judging from those pictures I've seen of you as a robot in the news."

Kyle, barely noticing what Natalie had just spoken, said to her, "Natalie...is that...?"

"Yes it is, Kyle," Natalie softly said. "This is the surprise, our new baby boy."

"Wow..." Kyle said, sitting down on the bed next to Natalie, being careful to keep the spikes on his tail away from Natalie and the baby. "I wish you hadn't kept this a secret from me..."

He looked the baby fox over. The baby had a coat of beautiful orange fur, and he had three hairs sticking out from his forehead. They dropped down over his fine-looking face. However, Kyle barely noticed any of this, due to one very unusual feature of their new son: he had two tails.

"Why does he have two tails?" Kyle said.

"I don't know..." Natalie said. "The doctor was also quite confused by it, but he said that everything should be okay. Apart from the fact that he has two identical tails, everything about our boy is perfectly normal."

"That's good... Even if he is...deformed..."

"KYLE!" Natalie screamed in Kyle's face.

Kyle was caught off guard so much that he nearly toppled right off the bed.

"Sorry...anyway...even if he does look a little...strange...he is our firstborn son. We should love him no matter what."

"That's better, Kyle."

"Can I hold him some?"

"Sure...he is your son after all."

Kyle took up the baby in his arms, and held it to his metal chest. The warmth from the baby's body spread through his cold metal chest, reminding him of what it used to be like to have a flesh and blood body.

_It's going to be so hard getting used to this new body of mine. I'll never have to eat, or drink, or sleep, true enough, but I'll also never be able to truly feel alive. I can't cry...I can't taste any food...I can't smell anything... I want my old body back so badly...instead of this cold metal shell..._

Speaking of the cold metal, it was starting to wake up the baby in his arms. The baby started to sniffle a little, and opened its eyes. It took one look at Kyle's robotic face with its eerie black and red eyes, and started crying heavily.

"Oh...I think he's scared of the way I look."

"Don't worry, I'll work as hard as I can on figuring out how to get you back to your old self."

She took the child back from Kyle and put it in her arms. She hummed a song to the baby again, to make it quiet down.

"Please hurry, having a body like this is terrible compared to having my old one. It's such a cold body, compared to my old one."

"Don't worry, I'm going to give this project my best. I'll find a way to reverse the roboticization process before you know it."

"Thanks... Say...did you ever think of a name for our boy?"

Natalie looked up into Kyle's face, saying, "Yes, it's Miles."

"Oh...heh...I see. Miles...after my middle name 'Kilometers', right?"

"Yes. Sonic's been calling him Tails though ever since he saw his tails for the first time. It's kind of annoying, I think. He won't call him Miles, because he says that name sounds silly."

"Heh...likes to do things his own way, just like his father... Oh wait...his father. Does he know about Swift yet?"

"Yes...he's seen the news on TV..."

"How does he feel?"

"He heard about how you were with Swift when he died, and he thinks you let him die."

"Oh...that's not good. I hope I can make him feel better about me. Swift told me with his last words to take care of Sonic."

"Really? You mean I'll be taking care of two kids at once?"

"Yes. You don't mind do you?"

"While I don't like Sonic that much, I just can't bear sending him to an orphanage to be all alone. We can adopt him, yes. Maybe it would be good for Miles to have an older brother..."

"Yeah..." Kyle said, putting his legs down on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed. "I'll go see if I can comfort him some about Swift. Where is he?"

"He's watching TV in the living room downstairs."

"Thanks."

Kyle got up off of the bed and walked down the stairs into the living room. Sonic was watching some kind of old Earth TV show about a talking sponge and a talking starfish. It was called Spongemob Squarefish or something. He'd heard it had been a craze when it had been released on Earth long ago, but it was having trouble catching on with Freedomians.

"Sonic?" Kyle said, entering the room.

"What?" Sonic said in a harsh tone, not turning to look at Kyle.

"This is the first time we've spoken in person, isn't it?" Kyle said, sitting down next to Sonic. "It's a shame we couldn't have met under better circumstances. You look a lot like your dad, you know. It's just that your fur is a much darker shade of blue than his..."

"Get away from me!" Sonic shouted, scooting to the opposite end of the couch, away from Kyle. "You let my daddy die!"

"Sonic...I'm very sorry about your father."

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Sonic said. "I don't wanna talk to you!"

"Please, listen to me Sonic," Kyle said. "If your dad hadn't run to save me, the Freedomian Army would have been destroyed and Robotnik would have probably taken over the planet by now."

Sonic didn't say anything back, but simply sat in silence, his angry gaze fixed on the TV set.

"Also...I wouldn't be talking to you now either. Robotnik did something that turned me into a robot."

Sonic turned to look at Kyle. He was so surprised to see that Kyle was a robot that he leaped off of the couch and nearly tripped backwards over the coffee table in the process.

"Whoa! You really are a robot! I thought that the pictures in the newspaper weren't real! Why did Robotnik turn you into a robot?"

"Well...most of the reason is because every time Robotnik turns somebody into a robot, they lose their free will and have to do everything he says."

"That's terrible! But how did you get your free will back?"

"Your dad... Robotnik forced me to fight him, and I almost killed him. I couldn't stop myself," Kyle said, his tone saddening. "Anyway, right before I was about to strike the final blow, Swift electrocuted me with a wire, and that damaged the mind control program so that I could get my free will back."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry that I couldn't stop myself from fighting Swift. I feel like this is my entire fault... If I hadn't been caught...he'd still be alive..."

Sonic lowered his head a little. He started to cry a little, the tears pattering across the carpet of the living room. The talking sponge and talking starfish on the TV continued to blather out joke after joke, oblivious to what was going on in the living room. It was like a mockery of the sadness permeating the room.

"I'm so sorry, Sonic," Kyle said again, standing up off of the couch and moving closer to Sonic. "Please...can you ever forgive me? I'll do anything I can for you. I want to do it to pay back Swift for everything he's done for me. He told me with his last breath to take care of you..."

Sonic looked up at him, his young eyes wide with tears.

_This poor kid...having to go through all of this when he's only six years old..._

"I'll understand if you don't forgive me. I made a lot of mistakes..."

"No, I forgive you. You must have been really good friends with Daddy if he wanted you to take care of me. So, I forgive you then, and I'll be in your family."

"Oh, thank you Sonic."

"You're welcome. So...does this mean that Tails is my new baby brother or something then?"

"His name is Miles, and yes, since we've adopted you, he's your new baby brother."

"Really? That's great! I always wanted a brother or sister, but since Mommy died in that car crash, I couldn't have one."

"That's too bad about your mom, but you are right about getting a brother."

"Can we go see Tails again?" Sonic said.

Kyle sighed, but then he said, "Yes...we can go back up to Natalie's room and see _Miles_ again."

"Alright, let's go then!" Sonic said, already rushing out of the room and up the stairs in under two seconds.

Kyle stood there for a few seconds, dumbfounded by how fast Sonic had run out of the room.

_Wow...Natalie said he was fast when we talked on the phone...but I didn't think he'd be almost as fast as Swift... He's just like his dad in almost every way, from his attitude down to his super speed. It's incredible. Don't worry Swift, I'll take care of him the best I can, especially since he's almost like a little you. I'll watch out for the rest of my new family too. They deserve nothing less than the best I can give them._

He smiled a little as he walked up the stairs back to Natalie's bedroom, to rejoin the rest of his brand new family.

**The End**


End file.
